
Class F 

Book 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HiI 



Historical Tales 



The Romance of Reality 



BY 

CHARLES MORRIS 

AUTHOR OF "HALF-HOURS WITH THE BEST AMERICAN 
AUTHORS," " TALES FROM THE DRAMATISTS," " KING 
ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND-TABLE," ETC. 



SPANISH-AMERICAN 



PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1904 



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8 I904 

' rfarhf £r?rrv 
CI.4SS *■> XXo. No. 

COPY S 

- — - _ — -..-.._, 



Copyright, 1904, 

BY 

J. B. Lippincott Company. 



Published September, 190k. 



Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company Philadelphia, U.S. A 






CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Isles oe Beauty beyond the Seas 7 

Alonso de Ojeda and the Carib Cacique 17 

The Early Days of a Famous Cavalier 23 

Balboa and the Discovery oe the Pacific .... 33 

The Komantic Story of the Prince of Tezcuco . . 44 

The Famous Eetreat of Cortez and the Spaniards 58 

plzarro and the inca's golden kansom 71 

gonzalo plzarro and the land of clnnamon ... 86 
coronado and the seven clties of clbola .... 97 
The Faithful Miranda and the Lovers of Argen- 
tina 109 

Lantaro, the Boy Hero of the Araucanians . . . 116 
Drake, the Sea-King, and the Spanish Treasure- 
Ships 127 

Sir Walter Kaleigh and the Quest for El Dorado 139 

Morgan, the Freebooter, and the Baid on Panama 151 

A Drama of Plunder, Murder, and Bevenge . . . 163 

The "Wonderful March of the Freebooters . . . 173 

The Cruelty of the Spaniards to the Indians . . 186 
Cudjoe, the Negro Chief, and the Maroons of 

Jamaica 195 

toussaint l'ouverture and the bevolution in 

Hayti 205 

Bolivar the Liberator, and the Conquest of New 

Granada 217 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Hidalgo the Patriot, and the G-rito de Dolores . 226 
Paez, the Llanero Chief, and the War for Free- 
dom 236 

The Hannibal of the Andes and the Freedom of 

Chili 247 

Colony, Empire, and Kepublic ; Kevolution in 

Brazil , 257 

Francia the Dictator, the Louis XI. of Paraguay 269 

Tacon the Governor and Marti the Smuggler . . 280 
Kearney's Daring Expedition and the Conquest 

of New Mexico 288 

The Second Conquest of the Capital of Mexico . . 299 
"Walker the Filibuster, and the Invasion of 

Nicaragua 309 

Maximilian of Austria and his Empire in Mexico 316 

Maceo and the Struggle for Cuban Independence 325 
Lieutenant Hobson and the Sinking of the " Mer- 

rimac" «... 336 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SPANISH-AMERICAN. 

PAGE 

A Tropical Kiver Scene [Frontispiece). 

Cathedral or Saist Domingo 26 

Landing-place of Cortez, Vera Cruz 30 

Death of Atahualpa 84 

The Harbor of Valparaiso 128 

The City of Panama 152 - 

Bridge entering Quito 222 

Rio Janeiro and Harbor 266 

The Governor General's Palace, Havana . . . 282 

Oldest House in the United States, Santa Pe . 296 

On the Border of Lake Chalco 302 

House of Maximilian at Queretaro 318 



THE ISLES OF BEA UTY BEYOND 
THE SEAS. 

The 12th of October, 1492, ranks very high 
among the important dates in the history of the 
world. For on that day men from Europe, then 
the centre of civilization, first gazed on a rich new 
land beyond the seas, a great virgin continent, des- 
tined to become the seat of flourishing civilizations 
and to play a leading part in the later history of 
the world. Little did Columbus and his com- 
panions, when they saw before them on that 
famous morning a beautiful island, rising like a 
pearl of promise from the sparkling tropical sea, 
dream of what time held in store for that new- 
found land, foreordained to become the "New 
World' ' of the nations, the hope of the oppressed, 
and the pioneer dwelling-place of liberty and 
equality. 

Eut we are here concerned with only what they 
saw, and this was a green and populous island, so 
covered with fresh verdure that it seemed to their 
eyes like a continual orchard. An orchard it was, 
for many of the trees were laden with new and 
strange fruits, of rare color and attractive form. 
Never had they breathed air more pure and 
fresh, and never had they beheld seas of such 
crystal clearness or verdure of more emerald hue ; 

7 



8 HISTORICAL TALES. 

and it is not surprising that their eyes sparkled 
with joy and their souls were filled with wonder 
and delight as they gazed on this entrancing scene 
after their long and dreaded journey over a vast 
and unknown ocean. 

Not less strange to the new-comers were the 
people who flocked in numbers from the woods and 
ran to the shore, where they stood gazing in simple 
wonder on the ships, winged marvels which had 
never met their eyes before. ~No clothing hid their 
dusky, copper-colored skins, of a hue unknown to 
their visitors, and they looked like the unclad 
tenants of some new paradise. Their astonishment 
turned into fright when they saw boats leave these 
strange monsters of the deep, in them men clad 
in shining steel or raiment of varied color. Their 
white faces, their curling beards, their splendid 
clothing, as it appeared to these simple denizens of 
the forest, and especially the air of dignity of their 
leader, with his ample cloak of scarlet, added to 
their amazement, and they viewed the strangers as 
divine visitors, come to them from the skies. 

Not less was their surprise when they saw the 
wonderful strangers kneel and kiss the soil, and 
then uplift a great and gleaming banner, of rich 
colors and designs that seemed magical to their 
untaught eyes. And deep was their delight when 
these strange beings distributed among them won- 
derful gifts, — glass beads, hawk's bells, and other 
trifles, — which seemed precious gems to their untu- 
tored souls. They had nothing to ofler in return, 



THE ISLES OP BEAUTY BEYOND THE SEAS. 9 

except tame parrots, of which they had many, and 
balls of cotton-yarn ; but the eyes of the Spaniards 
sparkled with hope when they saw small ornaments 
of gold, which some of them wore. Happy had it 
been for all the natives of the New World if this 
yellow metal had not existed among them, for it 
was to bring them untold suffering and despair. 

Such was the island of San Salvador, as Colum- 
bus named this first-seen land; but, leaving it, let 
us go with him in his voyage through that island- 
sprinkled sea, and use his eyes in taking in the 
marvels with which it was sown. Familiar as 
these islands have become to many of us, to him 
they were all new, beautiful, and strange, a string 
of tropic pearls or rare emeralds spread out along 
those shining waters of the South. 

On leaving San Salvador, the Spaniards, their 
hearts elate with joy and pride in their discovery, 
hardly knew whither to go. They seemed drawn 
to the right and the left alike. They found them- 
selves in an archipelago of beautiful islands, green 
and level, rising on all sides and seemingly number- 
less. To us they are the great green cluster of the 
Bahamas, but to Columbus, who fancied that he 
had reached the shores of Asia, they were that 
wonderful archipelago spoken of by Marco Polo, in 
which were seven thousand four hundred and fifty- 
eight islands, abounding with spices and rich in 
odoriferous trees and shrubs. 

On went the Spanish caravels, sailing over bright 
and placid waters scarce ruffled by the gentle 



10 HISTORICAL TALES. 

breeze, and touching at isle after isle, each of 
which seemed to the voyagers more beautiful than 
the last. Eesting under the shade of warm and 
verdant groves, while his men sought to fill their 
water-casks from the purest and coolest springs, the 
admiral found the scene around him entrancing to 
his vision, ' ' the country as fresh and green as the 
month of May in Andalusia ; the trees, the fruits, 
the herbs, the flowers, the very stones, for the most 
part, as different from those of Spain as night from 
day." 

One isle, which he honored with the name of 
Isabella, after his patron, the Spanish queen, sur- 
passed in charm all he had yet seen. Like them 
all, it was covered with rich vegetation, its climate 
delightful, its air soft and balmy, its scenery so 
lovely that it seemed to him "as if one would 
never desire to depart. I know not where first to 
go, nor are my eyes ever weary of gazing on the 
beautiful verdure. ' ' 

Fresh water was abundant, and he ordered all 
the casks of the ships to be filled. He could not 
say enough in praise of what he saw. "Here 
are large lakes, and the groves about them are 
marvellous, and in all the island everything is 
green, and the herbage as in April in Andalusia. 
The singing of the birds is such that it seems as if 
one would never wish to leave this land. There are 
flocks of parrots which hide the sun, and other 
birds, large and small, of so many kinds, and so 
different from ours, that it is wonderful ; and 



THE ISLES OF BEAUTY BEYOND THE SEAS. 11 

besides, there are trees of a thousand species, each 
having its particular fruit, and all of marvellous 
flavor, so that I am in the greatest trouble in the 
world not to know them, for I am very certain that 
they are each of great value. ' ' 

As he approached this island, he fancied that the 
winds bore to his senses the spicy odors said to be 
wafted from the islands of the East Indian seas. 
" As I arrived at this cape, ' ' he said, ' ' there came 
off a fragrance so good and soft of the flowers or 
trees of the land that it was the sweetest thing in 
the world." 

Not only were the islands the homes of birds of 
brilliant plumage and flowers of gorgeous hue, but 
the very seas seemed to their new visitors like 
tropical gardens, for the fish with which they 
abounded rivalled the birds and flowers in bril- 
liancy of color. The scales of some of them glit- 
tered like precious stones, and gleams of gold and 
silver seemed to come from them as they swam 
around the ships, while the dolphins taken from 
the water changed color like the chameleon. 

The natives who had been taken on board the 
ships made signs which seemed to indicate that 
more wonderful islands were yet to be seen, with 
cities and kings and queens, and abundance of gold 
and gems ; or, at least, the Spaniards understood 
this from their signs, as they pointed to the south 
when gold was shown them and they were asked 
where it could be found. Far to the south was a 
great island which they named Cuba, and another 



12 HISTORICAL TALES. 

which they called Bohio. Cuba, as their signs 
appeared to show, was of vast extent and abounded 
with gold, pearls, and spices, and Columbus deter- 
mined to sail for it, hoping there to find the wealth 
which he and his companions so ardently craved. 
It cannot be said that the natives wished to deceive 
them, but no doubt they willingly agreed to all 
they were asked, with the innocent desire of 
pleasing their wonderful new friends. Columbus, 
full of the idea that he was near the shores of India, 
hoped to reach the city of Quinsai, which Marco 
Polo had said was one of the most magnificent in 
the world, and there deliver the letter of his sover- 
eigns to the Grand Khan of the Indies and bring 
back his reply to Spain. Inspired by this enticing 
hope, he left the Bahamas and turned the prows of 
his small fleet towards the isle of Cuba. 

It was on the morning of October 28 that the 
shores of this noble island first met the eyes of the 
eager mariners. As the small fleet swept along its 
coast the admiral was struck with its size and 
grandeur ; its high and airy mountains, like those 
of Sicily ; its long and sweeping plains, and the 
fertile valleys of its broad rivers ; its far-reaching 
forests and many green headlands, which led them 
on and on into the remote distance. They anchored 
at length in a beautiful river, whose waters were 
transparent and deeply shaded with overhanging 
trees. Here Columbus had himself rowed up the 
stream, which seemed to grow more enchanting 
with every mile, forests of lofty and spreading 



THE ISLES OF BEAUTY BEYOND THE SEAS. 13 

trees crowding down to its banks, some in fruit, 
some in flower, some bearing fruits and flowers at 
once. These woods swarmed with birds of brilliant 
plumage, — the scarlet flamingo, the rich-hued par- 
rots and woodpeckers, the tiny and sparkling hum- 
ming-birds, which flitted on rainbow wings from 
flower to flower, and which no European had ever 
before seen. Even the insects were beautiful, 
in their shining coats of mail. Though most of 
the birds were silent, the charms of song were not 
wanting, and the excited fancy of Columbus de- 
tected among them notes like those of the nightin- 
gale. Ever open to the charms of nature, Cuba 
seemed to him an elysium, ' ' the most beautiful 
island that eyes ever beheld. ' ' 

He was sure there must here be mines of gold, 
groves of spices, rivers and seas that bore j^earls. 
The houses, though simple in structure, were 
well built and clean, roofed with palm-leaves and 
shaded by spreading trees. Led on still by his ex- 
cited fancy, he hoped soon to find great cities and 
rich settlements, but none such greeted his gaze. 
Assured that the capital of the Grand Khan could 
not be far away, he sent two ambassadors, with 
presents, to the interior, in a direction pointed out 
by the people. But after going many miles they 
found only a village of fifty houses, like those seen 
on the coast. There was no gold or silver, no 
spices, none of the things they so ardently sought. 
The only thing new to their eyes was a fashion seen 
among the people, who rolled up certain dried and 



14 HISTORICAL TALES. 

aromatic leaves, and, lighting one end, put the 
other in their mouths, and exhaled the smoke. 
This was the first ever seen by white men of that 
remarkable American plant, called by the natives 
by a name like tobacco, which has since grown to 
be a favorite throughout the world, in palace and 
hovel alike. 

Sailing onward along the Cuban coast, the imagi- 
nation of Columbus was continually aroused by the 
magnificence, freshness, and verdant charm of the 
scenery, which he could not praise too highly. A 
warm love of nature is frequently displayed in the 
description of the country which he wrote out for 
Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain. Of one place, 
named by him Puerto Santo, he said : ' ' The 
amenity of this river, and the clearness of the 
water, through which the sand at the bottom may 
be seen ; the multitude of palm-trees of various 
forms, the highest and most beautiful that I have 
met with, and an infinity of other great and green 
trees ; the birds in rich plumage, and the verdure 
of the fields, render this country, most Serene 
Princess, of such marvellous beauty, that it sur- 
passes all others in graces and charm, as the day 
doth the night in lustre. For which reason I often 
say to my people, that, much as I endeavor to 
give a complete account of it to your Majesties, 
my tongue cannot express the whole truth or my 
tongue describe it ; and I have been so over- 
whelmed at the sight of so much beauty that I 
have not known how to relate it." 



THE ISLES OF BEAUTY BEYOND THE SEAS. 15 

One more island he was yet to see in this mar- 
vellous series of discoveries, — the one called by the 
natives Eohio or Babeque, now known as Hayti, 
one of the most beautiful islands in the world in 
the splendor of its tropical vegetation. Columbus 
and his men could describe it only by comparison 
with the most beautiful provinces of the country 
from which they came, and in consequence he 
named the island Hispaniola, or ' ' Little Spain. ' ' 

Here he found the people as innocent and simple 
in their habits as those of San Salvador, living in 
huts built of the palm-branches, wearing no clothing, 
for the air was always warm and balmy, and passing 
life in a holiday of indolence and enjoyment. To 
the Spaniards their life seemed like a pleasant 
dream, their country a veritable Lotus land, where 
it was ' ' always afternoon. ' ' They had no wants 
nor cares, and spent life in easy idleness and inno- 
cent sports. They had their fields, but the food 
plants grew bountifully with little labor. The 
rivers and sea yielded abundance of fish, and 
luscious tropical fruits grew profusely in their 
forests. Thus favored by nature, they spent much 
of the day in repose, while in the evenings they 
danced gayly in their fragrant groves with songs or 
the rude music of their drums. After the coming 
of the Spaniards the clear tinkle of the hawk's 
bells as they danced gave them the deepest delight, 
and for those musical toys they were ready to 
barter everything they possessed. 

In Hispaniola gold seemed more plentiful than 



16 HISTORICAL TALES. 

the Spaniards had yet seen, but they were still 
lured on to distant places, with the illusive hope 
that this precious metal might there be found in 
quantities. Yet Columbus felt forced to cease, for 
a time, the quest of the precious metal, and sail for 
home with the story of the new world he had 
found. One of his vessels had deserted him ; an- 
other had been wrecked: if he should lose the third 
he would be left without means of return and his 
great discovery might remain unknown. 

Moved by this fear, on the 4th of January, 1493, 
he spread the sails of the one caravel left to him, and 
turned its prow towards Europe, to carry thither 
the news of the greatest maritime discovery the 
world had ever known. Thus ended in success and 
triumph the first voyage of Columbus to the ' ' New 
World." 



ALONSO DE OJ EDA AND THE 
CARIB CACIQUE. 

Of the three ships with which Columbus made 
his first voyage, the " Pinta" deserted the others and 
went off on a voyage of discovery of its own, and 
the " Santa Maria, " the flag-ship of the admiral, ran 
ashore on the coast of Hispaniola and proved a 
hopeless wreck. Only the little " Mna" (the ' ' girl, ' ' 
as this word means in English) was left to carry the 
discoverer home. The " Santa Maria" was carefully 
taken to pieces, and from her timbers was con- 
structed a small but strong fort, with a deep vault 
beneath and a ditch surrounding. Friendly Indians 
aided in this, and not a shred of the stranded vessel 
was left to the waves. As the " Mna" was too small 
to carry all his crew back to Spain, Columbus decided 
to leave a garrison to hold this fort and search for 
gold until he should return. That the island held 
plenty of gold he felt sure. So Captain Ardua was 
left, with a garrison of forty men, and the " Mna" 
spread her sails to the winds to carry to Spain the 
wonderful news of the great discovery. 

La Navidad, or The Nativity, he named the fort, 
in remembrance of the day of the wreck, and when 
he came back in 1493 he hopefully expected to find 
its garrison awaiting him, with a rich treasure in 
the precious yellow metal. He reached the spot to 

2 17 



18 HISTORICAL TALES. 

find the fort a ruin and the garrison a remembrance 
only. They had been attacked by the Indians and 
massacred during the absence of the admiral. 

In fact, the mild, gentle, and friendly Indians 
whom Columbus had met with on his first voyage 
were not the only people of the islands. There 
were on some of the West Indies a warlike race 
called Caribs, — cannibals, the Spaniards said they 
were, — who gave the invaders no small trouble 
before they were overcome. 

It was a band of these fierce Caribs that had 
attacked La Navidad and destroyed the fort and its 
garrison, impelled to this, likely enough, by some 
of the ruthless acts which the Spaniards were much 
too ready to commit. The leader of these warriors 
was a bold cacique named Caonabo, chief of a 
warlike mountain tribe. It is with this chieftain 
that we are at present concerned, as he was the 
hero, or victim rather, of the first romantic story 
known to us in Indian life. 

In addition to the forts built by the Spaniards on 
the coast of Hispaniola, there was one built far in 
the interior, called Fort Santo Tomas. This stood 
in the mountainous region of Cibao, the reputed 
land of gold of the island. Its site lay within the 
territory of Caonabo, who ruled over a great dis- 
trict, his capital town or village being on the 
southern slope of the Cibao Mountains. 

The first conflict between the Spaniards and the 
natives, after the massacre of the garrison of La 
Navidad, was in the district of the Vega, where a 



ALONSO DE OJEDA AND THE CARIB CACIQUE. 19 

fierce fight took place in the spring of 1495, the 
natives suffering a severe defeat. The next was at 
Fort Santo Tomas, which was commanded by 
Alonso de Ojeda, a young man who had come 
out with Columbus in his second voyage. He was 
a man of great courage and unusual daring, one 
of the chief among those dauntless spirits who had 
to do with the conquest of the "New World. 

A man of his spirit was needed to command this 
isolated fort in the mountains, for the cacique, 
Caonabo, was not pleased with this invasion of his 
territory, and soon marched upon the fort with a 
strong force of his warlike race. Santo Tomas was 
closely invested and fiercely attacked, Ojeda being 
reduced to such an extremity that he owed his 
escape only to a rescuing force sent by Columbus 
from Fort Isabella, on the coast. Driven off by the 
superior arms of his foes, Caonabo withdrew sul- 
lenly to his stronghold in the mountains. But he 
was quickly back again, with a larger force than 
before. He had never met his equal among the 
Indians, but the fire-spouting tubes of the Spaniards 
proved too much even for his courage, and he was 
a second time forced to withdraw. 

It was evident, however, that Ojeda was peril- 
ously situated, surrounded as he was by warlike 
enemies, led by so bold and persistent a chief. In 
the face of this peril he adopted an expedient as 
daring as any of those shown by Cortez, Pizarro, 
or any other of the Spanish caballeros of that age 
of conquest, and one whose ingenuity equalled its 



20 HISTORICAL TALES. 

daring. It is this striking adventure which it is 
our purpose to describe. 

Choosing from his men a few of the bravest and 
most trusty, Ojeda set out on horseback over the 
mountains, following paths never before traversed 
by the Spaniards, until they came to the Carib 
town of Maguana, where he found Caonabo sur- 
rounded by a throng of armed warriors. The 
Spaniards had bearded the lion in his den, and 
were in a position of extreme peril should the 
cacique prove hostile. But Ojeda was a past-mas- 
ter in craftiness, and by professions of friendship 
and other arts of duplicity he persuaded the chief 
to accompany him alone into the edge of the forest. 

He now took from his pocket a pair of handcuffs, 
bright and shining manacles of which the untutored 
Indian had no conception of the use, but whose 
brightness attracted him. Ojeda told him they 
were bracelets, which the King of Spain had gra- 
ciously sent him as a present, in recognition of his 
fame as a warrior of skill and courage. The poor 
Indian probably understood all this very imper- 
fectly, but he was easily brought to view the man- 
acles as Turey, or a gift from Heaven, and willingly 
held out his wrists that his guest might adorn them 
with those strange and splendid bracelets. 

In a moment his hands were secured, and before 
he could recover from his surprise Ojeda, whose 
small frame concealed much strength, reached from 
his saddle, seized the astonished chief, and by a 
great exertion of muscular force lifted him from 



ALONSO DE OJEDA AND THE CARIB CACIQUE. 21 

the ground and swung him up on the horse. The 
warriors, who beheld this act with sudden suspi- 
cion, had no time to use their weapons before the 
Spaniards had put spur to their horses and dashed 
off into the forest. Two of them rode on each side 
of Ojeda, to prevent the captive throwing himself 
from the horse. Threatened by their swords and 
with his hands clasped in those fatal bracelets, 
Caonabo was forced to submit, and was carried by 
his captors for many miles through the heart of his 
own country to Fort Isabella, a stronghold which 
Columbus had built at a site on the sea-coast, front- 
ing a bay in which all his vessels could ride in 
safety. Here the bold Ojeda, as the culmination 
of his daring enterprise, delivered his captive to 
Columbus, and he was locked up in a secure cell. 

As the story goes, the brave cacique had a 
greater admiration for courage than anything else 
in the world, and instead of hating Ojeda for the 
crafty way in which he had been captured, he 
seemed to hold him in high esteem as the bravest 
of the Spaniards. Whenever Ojeda appeared in his 
cell he would rise and courteously salute him, 
while he treated the visits of Columbus with 
haughty disregard. So far as the captive cacique 
could make himself understood, the high rank of 
Columbus was nought to him. He had no proof 
that he was a man of courage, while the manner in 
which Ojeda had captured him showed him to be 
a brave man. To the bold Carib courage was the 
first of virtues and the only one worthy of respect. 



22 HISTORICAL TALES. 

The poor Indian suffered the fate of most of his 
countrymen who had to do with the Spanish in- 
vaders. Put on board ship and sent as a prize of 
valor to Spain, the unfortunate chief died on the 
voyage, perhaps from a broken heart, or as a result 
of the change from his free forest life to the nar- 
row confines of a fifteenth-century ship. 

The life of Ojeda after that date was one full of 
adventure, in which he distinguished himself as 
much by rashness as by valor. In 1499 he was put 
in command of an exploring expedition and sent 
out from Spain, one of his companions being Ame- 
rigo Yespucci, he whose first name gained the im- 
memorial honor of being given to the great west- 
ern continent. In this voyage Ojeda discovered 
part of the continent of South America, which he 
called Yenezuela, or Little Venice, a name sug- 
gested by an Indian village built on piles in the 
water. Eight years later Ojeda sought to plant a 
colony in New Andalusia, but the natives there 
proved too bold and hostile for him, and he failed 
to subject them to his authority. 

Many were his adventures, all of them charac- 
terized by a rash daring like that he had shown in 
the capture of Caonabo. When at length he died, 
he was buried, in response to his own request, in the 
doorway of the Franciscan monastery in the city of 
Santo Domingo, so that all who entered that place 
of worship should walk over his grave. 



THE EARL Y DA YS OF A FA MO US 
CA VALIER. 

The island elysium which Columbus had discov- 
ered, and of which he wrote and conversed in the 
most glowing terms, seemed like a fairy -land of 
promise to the people of Spain, and hundreds of 
adventurers soon crossed the seas, hopeful of win- 
ning gold and ready for deeds of peril and daring 
in that wonderful unknown land. Some of them 
were men of wealth, who were eager to add to 
their riches, but the most of them had little beyond 
their love of adventure and their thirst for gold to 
carry them across the seas, needy but bold soldiers 
and cavaliers who were ready for any enterprise, 
however perilous, that might promise them reward. 
The stories of many of these men are full of roman- 
tic interest, and this is especially the case with one 
of them, the renowned Hernando Cortez. 

We propose here to deal with the interesting 
early history of this most famous of the New 
World conquerors. The son of a Spanish captain, 
of good family, his buoyant spirit and frolicsome 
humor led him into many wild escapades while 
still a boy. The mystery and romance of the 
strange land beyond the sea and the chance to 
win gold and glory which it offered were fasci- 

23 



24 HISTORICAL TALES. 

nating to a spirit like his, and lie was prevented 
from taking part in an expedition when but seven- 
teen years of age only by an unlucky accident. 
As he was scaling a wall one night, in an adventure 
like that of Eomeo and Juliet, the stones gave way 
and he was thrown violently to the ground and 
buried under the ruins. Before he got out of bed 
from his hurts the fleet had sailed. 

Two years longer the ambitious boy remained at 
home, engaged, perhaps, in similar pranks, but at 
length another chance offered, and in 1504 he set 
sail for the land of promise, still a youth of only 
nineteen years of age. He did not get across the 
sea without adventure. Quintero, the captain of 
his ship, bound for Hispaniola and a market, stole 
away from the rest of the squadron, hoping to 
reach port and sell his cargo before the others 
arrived. But fierce gales came to punish him ; for 
many days the vessel was tossed about, the sailors 
not knowing where they were, and furious at the 
treachery of their captain. At length, one morn- 
ing, hope returned to them, in the form of a white 
dove that lighted on the foremast-top. When the 
bird had rested it took to flight again, and by fol- 
lowing its course the weary mariners finally came 
to the port they sought. But the captain was paid 
for his treachery by finding that the other vessels 
had arrived before him and sold their cargoes. 

The young adventurer was full of ambitious hope. 
When the governor's secretary told him that no 
doubt he would be given a good estate to settle on, 



THE EARLY DAYS OF A FAMOUS CAVALIER. 25 

he replied, ' ' But I came to get gold ; not to till the 
soil, like a peasant. ' ' 

As no gold offered, however, he was glad enough 
to accept the land, but his fondness for active deeds 
clung to him, and he took part in the military expe- 
ditions sent out to fight with the rebel natives. He 
had his quarrels, too, and his duels about the love 
of fair ladies, and received wounds whose scars he 
carried to the grave. A nobler opening for his 
valor came in 1511, when an expedition set out for 
the conquest of Cuba. Cortez enlisted under the 
leader, Diego Velasquez, whose favor he won by 
his courage and activity, his cordial and lively dis- 
position, and the good humor and ready wit which 
made him a favorite with all he met. 

After the island had been conquered, Yelasquez 
was made its governor, Cortez still being his close 
friend. But for some reason this friendship did not 
last, and when at length a party of discontented 
men formed a plan to complain of the acts of the 
governor to the higher authorities in Hispaniola, 
Cortez took part in the conspiracy, and was chosen, 
from his fearless spirit, to act as their envoy, it 
being necessary to perform the perilous exploit of 
crossing an arm of the sea over fifty miles wide in 
an open boat. 

In some way the plot got wind, and, before he 
could leave the island, Cortez was arrested by order 
of the governor and thrown into prison, his limbs 
being loaded with fetters. Yelasquez even intended 
to hang hirn, as we are told, but was persuaded by 



26 HISTORICAL TALES. 

his friends not to go so far. These Spanish governors 
had the power to do almost anything they pleased, 
their distance from home enabling them to act the 
despot at will, and their influence at court saving 
them from evil consequences. 

Cortez did not stay long in his prison cell. In 
some way he managed to open one of the bolts of his 
fetters and soon had his limbs free. Then, turning 
his irons into tools, he used them to force open the 
window of his cell. As he was on the second floor 
of the building, it was easy for one so agile as he 
to reach the ground without injury, and he made 
his way to a church near by, where he claimed the 
right of sanctuary. 

When Yelasquez heard of the escape of his pris- 
oner he was furious. He did not dare attempt to 
take him from the church by force, since the sacred 
walls protected all who sought their asylum. But 
a guard was stationed close by, with orders to seize 
the fugitive if he should leave the sanctuary. With 
one so careless as Cortez this was sure to be done. 
A few days later, as he stood heedlessly sunning 
himself outside the walls of the building, one of 
the guards rushed on him from behind, seized his 
arms, and held him till his comrades came to his 
aid. This man was one of those who afterwards 
took part in the conquest of Mexico, during which 
he was hung for some offence by Cortez, who per- 
haps took this opportunity for revenge. 

Once more the reckless young adventurer found 
himself a fettered captive, this time being put on 



THE EARLY DAYS OF A FAMOUS CAVALIER. 27 

board a vessel that was to sail the next morning for 
Hispaniola, where Yelasquez designed he should be 
tried for his offence. But he proved a very hard 
prisoner to hold. That night, with much pain 
and difficulty, he managed to pull his feet out of 
the irons that held them, and then stole cautiously 
to the deck, where he found a boat floating by 
the vessel's side. Slipping down into this, under 
cover of the darkness, he cut loose and paddled 
silently away. 

When near the shore he met with a rapid current 
and rough waters, to which he was afraid to trust 
the boat. Being an expert swimmer, he thought 
it safest to breast the water himself, and boldly 
plunged overboard. He found his task a hard, 
almost a fatal one ; the current threatened to 
sweep him away, but after a long struggle with 
the waves he succeeded in reaching the shore, in 
a state of almost complete exhaustion. He now 
sought the church again, no doubt resolving this 
time to keep safely within its sacred shelter. 

The story goes on to state that the governor, 
worked upon by friends of the culprit, offered him 
forgiveness, which the incensed young cavalier was 
too proud to accept. What followed is amusing. 
Yelasquez was at a distance from the capital, on 
a military excursion, when one evening he was 
startled in his tent by the appearance of his 
enemy, completely armed and threatening in as- 
pect. In dismay, the governor asked him what 
he wanted. Cortez replied, angrily, that he was 



28 HISTORICAL TALES. 

tired of being treated like a felon, and that he 
must have an explanation or he would know the 
reason why. Yelasquez answered as angrily, and 
a hot altercation followed. But at length their 
talk became more friendly, and in the end their 
old amicable relations were resumed and they em- 
braced like a pair of lovers. The amusing part 
of the story is this : When a messenger arrived to 
tell the governor that Cortez had left the sanc- 
tuary and disappeared, he found the governor and 
the culprit both fast asleep in the same bed. 

This story seems doubtful, but at any rate they 
became friends again, and Cortez was given a large 
estate in Cuba, which he stocked with cattle, and 
on which he found gold-mines, which were worked 
by Indian labor. He married a beautiful Spanish 
girl, and, fast growing rich, spent several years in 
happy content. 

This, with some, would have been the end of a 
career. It was only the beginning of that of 
Cortez, before whom still lay a wonderful history 
and a record of undying fame. All we can tell 
here is how this came about. It began in expe- 
ditions of discovery. Cordova, a Cuban settler, 
seeking Indians for slaves in the Bahamas, was 
blown far westward by a storm, and reached an 
unknown shore, where the natives lived in stone 
buildings, cultivated the soil, and wore delicate 
cotton garments and ornaments of gold. In other 
ways they showed evidence of civilization. The 
land thus reached is that now known as Yucatan. 



THE EARLY DAYS OF A FAMOUS CAVALIER. 29 

Velasquez, on seeing the gold which Cordova 
brought back, sent out a small fleet under his 
nephew, Juan de Grijalva, to visit and explore this 
new land. Grijalva found evidence that a great 
civilized nation dwelt inland, rich in gold and far 
superior in civilization to any Indians whom the 
Spaniards had yet met. He named the country 
New Spain, and sailed back to Cuba with an ac- 
count of his important discoveries. 

The news filled Velasquez with hope and joy. 
Here seemed to be the land of gold which the 
Spaniards had so long sought. Here he might win 
vast wealth and the glory of adding a new and 
sjxLendid province to Spain. He at once began to 
fit out a much larger expedition, and looked around 
for a man fit to command it. Several of the hidal- 
goes, or gentlemen of Cuba, offered themselves, but 
none pleased the governor, and at length he settled 
upon Cortez as the best man for his purpose. By 
chance, rather than by intention, he had made a 
splendid choice. Cortez was the one man in the 
New World, and perhaps the one man at that time 
in all Spain, fitted by nature for the difficult task 
which lay before him. Wild and frivolous as he 
had shown himself in youth, all he needed was a 
great occasion to prove himself a great man. He 
was to develop into one of the ablest military lead- 
ers in all history, a man who, on a small scale, was 
to display a genius and achieve a success worthy 
of Caesar or Alexander or any of the famous sol- 
diers of the world. 



30 HISTORICAL TALES. 

But, from another point of view, Velasquez had 
made a bad choice. Cortez had disdained his fetters 
and his prisons, and would soon disdain his control. 
His hope to win gain and glory by the aid of this 
young adventurer was likely to prove a mere Will- 
o'-the-wisp. 

The very appointment seemed to change the 
whole character of the new admiral. He became 
a different man. His high spirits now changed to 
a tireless energy. He spent his money freely in 
fitting out the fleet, and even mortgaged his estate 
to raise more, and borrowed all he could. He 
worked incessantly, and inspired his companions 
and followers to active and enthusiastic toil. He 
was so popular in the island that several hundred 
recruits soon flocked to his banner, and six ships, 
some of them of large size, were rapidly got ready 
and stocked with provisions and military stores. 

Yet at the last moment it seemed as if all the 
labor and cost of Cortez would go for naught. 
Velasquez grew suspicious of him, and decided to 
rob him of his command and trust the fleet to 
safer hands. But he was not dealing with a man 
who could be played with in this fast and loose 
fashion. The secret was whispered to Cortez, and 
he decided to sail at once, though he was still short 
of men, of vessels, and of supplies. That night he 
took on board all the meat in the town, weighed 
anchor, and got ready to set sail. 

At day-dawn the news came to Velasquez that 
the fleet was about to depart. In a panic he sprang 



THE EARLY DAYS OF A FAMOUS CAVALIER. 31 

from his bed, threw on his clothes, mounted his 
horse, and rode in all haste to the beach. Cortez 
entered a boat and rowed near enough to the shore 
to speak with him. 

1 ' And is this the way you leave me ?' ' cried the 
angry governor ; "a courteous leave-taking, truly. ' ' 

' l Pardon me, ' ' said Cortez ; ' ' time presses, and 
there are some things that should be done before 
they are even thought of. Has your excellency 
any commands ?' ' 

His excellency would have commanded him to 
come on shore, if it had been of any use. As it 
was he had little to say, and with a polite wave of 
the hand Cortez returned to his ships. Soon only 
their vanishing hulls were to be seen. 

The fleet stopped for supplies at Macaca and at 
Trinidad. At the last place many men, and several 
cavaliers who were to prove his ablest officers, 
joined him. While there, letters came from Yelas- 
quez to the governor of Trinidad, ordering him to 
arrest Cortez, and hold the fleet for a new admiral 
who was to command it. The governor looked at 
Cortez and his men and concluded that he had 
better let them alone. They were too strong for 
him to deal with. 

So once more the bold adventurers escaped from 
Yelasquez and his schemes and sailed in triumph 
away, this time for Havana. Here, also, the gov- 
ernor of the place had received orders to arrest 
Cortez, and here, also, he did not dare attempt it. 
Yelasquez also wrote to Cortez, asking him to wait 



32 HISTORICAL TALES. 

till he could see him. Hernando Cortez was hardly 
the fool to pay any heed to such a letter as that. 
The lion was hardly likely to trust himself to the 
fox. He sent him a very polite and mild answer, 
saying that he would not lose sight of the interests 
of his excellency, and that he and the fleet, l ' God 
willing, would set sail the next morning. ' ' 

Finally, on the 18th of February, 1519, the fleet 
lost sight of Cuba at Cape San Antonio, on the 
western end of the island. It consisted in all of 
eleven vessels, most of them small, and had on 
board six hundred and sixty-three soldiers and 
sailors. A few of these were armed with cross- 
bows and only thirteen with muskets, while the 
horses numbered only sixteen. In addition there 
were ten heavy guns and four lighter ones, with a 
good supply of ammunition. 

Such was the fleet and such the force with which 
Hernando Cortez set sail to conquer a powerful 
and warlike nation. Fortunately the expedition 
had one of the world's great commanders at its 
head, or the enterprise would have ended in failure 
instead of leading, as it did, to a wonderful success. 



BALBOA AND THE DISCOVERY 
OF THE PACIFIC 

It was a splendid road to fortune which Colum- 
bus opened to the adventurers of Spain, and hun- 
dreds of them soon took that promising path. 
Among these was one Yasco Nunez de Balboa, a 
man poor in gold or land, but rich in courage and 
ambition, and weary enough of trying to live at 
home like a gentleman with the means of a peasant. 
In the year 1501 he crossed the seas to Hispaniola, 
where, like Cortez, he took up land and began to till 
the soil for a living. But he had not the skill or 
good luck of Cortez, and after years of labor he 
found himself poorer than when he commenced. 
He began to see that nature had not meant him for 
a farmer, and that if he wanted a fortune he must 
seek it in other fields. 

Balboa was not alone in this. There were others, 
with better-filled pockets than he, who were ripe for 
adventure and eager for gold. A famous one of these 
was Alonso de Ojeda, one of the companions of Co- 
lumbus and the hero of the adventure with the Carib 
chief already described, who in 1509 sailed for South 
America and founded a settlement named by him 
San Sebastian. He left orders with Enciso, a lawyer 
of the town of San Domingo, to fit out two more 

8 33 



34 HISTORICAL TALES. 

vessels and follow him with provisions for his new 
settlement. 

Enciso sailed in 1510, his vessels well laden with 
casks of bread and other food-stuffs. There was 
more in them, indeed, than Enciso dreamed of, for 
when far from land there crept out of one of these 
casks a haggard, woe-begone, half-starved stowaway, 
who looked as if he had not many ounces of life 
left in him. It was Yasco Nunez de Balboa, who 
had taken this way to join the expedition and 
escape from his creditors, since they would not have 
permitted him to go openly. The cask in which 
he snugly lay had been carried from his farm to 
the ship among others containing provisions. 

Enciso was furious when he saw this unwelcome 
addition to his crew. He threatened to throw him 
overboard, and on second thought vowed to leave 
him to starve on a desert island. The poor fellow 
fell on *his knees and tearfully begged for mercy. 
Others joined him in entreaties, and Enciso at 
length softened and spared him his life. He was to 
pay bitterly for his kindness before many days. 

The expedition had its adventures on the seas, 
ending in a wreck, and when San Sebastian was 
reached Ojeda was not to be found, and the settle- 
ment was a ruin. Enciso was in a quandary what 
to do, but Balboa had been on that coast before, on 
his first voyage out from Spain, and knew of an 
Indian village on the Darien Eiver where they 
might find food and shelter. He advised Enciso to 
go thither, and a journey was made overland, 



BALBOA AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC. 35 

among hostile Indians and with little food. The 
adventurers were half-starved when at length they 
reached their goal. 

Here they founded a new settlement named 
Santa Maria, no doubt first disposing of the Indians in 
the usual Spanish fashion, — killing some and making 
slaves of others. But it was not long before there 
were bitter quarrels among themselves. Enciso 
had forbidden them to have any private trade for 
gold with the natives, a ukase which they strongly 
resented. The result was that a party rose against 
him, with Balboa at its head. Enciso was deprived 
of his authority, but when they tried to elect another 
in his place it did not prove easy. Diego de Nicuesa, 
who had made a settlement near there, was sent for 
by some of the settlers, but when he came, Balboa's 
party would not receive him, and he, with seven- 
teen companions, were placed in a crazy old barque 
and left to find their way back to Hispaniola as best 
they could. 

Balboa had by this time shown himself the ablest 
and boldest man in Darien, and his influence and 
power grew steadily until the settlers voted him 
their governor. Enciso was seized and imprisoned, 
and finally was sent to Spain. With him went one 
of Balboa's chief supporters, in order to gain for 
him from the king the royal right to his new 
office. 

Balboa lost no time in showing that he was 
worthy of the dignity given him. He made many 
incursions into the surrounding country, and sue- 



36 HISTORICAL TALES. 

ceeded in collecting much gold, the yellow metal 
being more plentiful there than in the West 
India islands. In those expeditions he showed a 
wise spirit of conciliation and won the friendship 
of several of the Indian chiefs. In one of their 
excursions a quarrel arose among the Spaniards 
about the division of the gold they had obtained. 
They were almost at sword's-point when a young 
Indian chief, surprised to find them so hot about 
what seemed to him a useless substance, upset the 
gold out of the balance, and turned to Balboa, 
saying,— 

1 ' Why do you quarrel about such stuff as this ? 
If you value it so highly, I could take you to a 
country where it is so common that it is used for 
the meanest utensils. ' ' 

These significant words filled the Spaniards with 
hope and desire, and they eagerly asked where that 
rich land lay, and how it might be reached. 

' l At the distance of six suns [six days' journey] 
from here,' ' said the cacique, < ' lies another ocean as 
great as the one before you. Near its shores is the 
kingdom I spoke of. But it is very powerful, and 
if you wish to attack it you will need far more 
men than you have here. ' ' 

This was the first the Spaniards had heard of the 
great southern ocean or of the rich land of Peru. 
This must be the ocean, thought Balboa, which 
Columbus sought for without success, the waters 
which border the East Indies, and the great and 
rich nation on its shores must be one of the famous 



BALBOA AND THE DISCOVERY OP THE PACIFIC. 37 

countries of Asia. At once the desire arose in his 
mind to gaze on that unknown sea. 

Balboa felt it necessary to do something striking 
and do it quickly. He had received letters from 
Zamudio, the agent he had sent to Spain, which 
were very discouraging. Enciso had complained to 
King Ferdinand of the way in which he had been 
treated, and the king had not only refused to sup- 
port Balboa with a royal warrant for his actions, 
but had condemned his course and ordered him to 
return to Spain. His hopes of fortune and great- 
ness were at an end unless he could win the favor 
of the king by some great enterprise. Such would 
be the discovery of that great ocean, and this he 
determined to attempt. 

The Isthmus of Darien, which he would have to 
cross, is not over sixty miles wide. But many of 
these are miles of mountain, on which grow forests 
so dense as to be almost impassable. There, too, 
where it rains for more than half the year, the 
valleys are converted into marshes, and are so often 
overflowed that in many places the natives have to 
dwell in the trees, while from the high grounds 
rush swollen rivers, fierce and threatening. To 
march across an unknown and perilous country like 
this, led by treacherous Indian guides, was a bold 
and desperate enterprise, surpassing any which the 
Spaniards had yet attempted. But Balboa was one 
of the most daring and intrepid of them all, and to 
win the favor of his sovereign there was no danger 
he was not ready to face. 



38 HISTORICAL TALES. 

For the perilous expedition he could muster only- 
one hundred and ninety men. Eut these were 
veterans, hardened to the climate of the isthmus, 
and ready to follow him whatever the peril. They 
had good reason to trust his courage and readiness 
in emergencies, for they had found him always 
brave and alert. A thousand Indians were taken 
with them, to carry their provisions, and they added 
to their force a number of the fierce bloodhounds 
which were dreaded by the natives as much as the 
fire-arms of the Spaniards. 

Thus equipped, the expedition set out on the 1st 
of September, 1513, sailing along the coast to 
Coyba, where dwelt a friendly chief. Here half 
the men were left to guard their vessels and canoes. 
"With the remainder the terrible journey across 
the rock-ribbed and forest-covered isthmus was 
begun. 

No sooner had the Spaniards left the coast than 
troubles and perils thickened around them. The 
country was difficult to traverse, the people were 
bold and hostile. With their poisoned arrows they 
proved no feeble antagonists. As the adventurers 
left the plain and toiled up the mountains, a war- 
like cacique, with a large body of followers, met 
them in a narrow pass and boldly disputed the 
way. A fierce battle ensued, ending in favor of 
the Spaniards, who cut their way through the 
savages, leaving hundreds of them dead on the 
ground. 

Thus, fighting nature and fighting men, they 



BALBOA AND THE DISCOVERT OF THE PACIFIC. 39 

toiled onward and upward, until the six days fixed 
for their journey had stretched out to twenty-five. 
But now hope burned fresh in their hearts, for their 
guides assured them that from the top of the next 
mountain they could see the ocean they so ardently 
sought. Up the steep pass they toiled, until near 
the lofty summit, when Balboa bade them halt and 
went on alone, that he might be the first to gaze 
on the wonderful spectacle. 

Soon he stood on the mountain-top, and there, 
to his infinite delight, sparkled and spread before 
his eyes the mightiest ocean of the earth, stretch- 
ing away to the north, south, and west as far as 
human eye could see. Overwhelmed by the stu- 
pendous vision, he fell prostrate on the ground, 
like a worshipper before the object of his adoration. 
Then, rising to his knees, he thanked God for the 
great boon vouchsafed to him. 

His men, gazing eagerly upward, saw him rise 
and beckon them, while with his other hand he 
pointed wildly westward. With springing steps 
they rushed to his side, and joined in his delight 
and his thanks to God as the marvellous spectacle 
met their eyes. Heaps of stones were piled up to 
show that they had taken possession of this spot 
for his sovereign, and as they went down the far- 
ther slope they carved on many trees the name 
of King Ferdinand of Castile, as the lord of this 
new land. 

Let us repeat here the closing lines of Keats' s 
famous sonnet to Homer, in which a great poet has 



40 HISTORICAL TALES. 

admirably depicted the scene, though, by a strange 
error, giving the credit to Cortez instead of Balboa: 

1 ' Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
"When a new planet swims into his ken ; 

Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 

Looked at each other with a wild surmise — 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. ' ' 

Twelve men were sent on in advance to seek the 
easiest and shortest path to the sea, one of them 
a man destined to become still more famous than 
Balboa, — Francisco Pizarro, the future conqueror 
of Peru. Peaching the shore, they found on it 
two stranded canoes, into which stepped two of the 
men, Blaze de Atienza and Alousa Martine, calling 
on their comrades to witness that they were the 
first to embark on that sea. 

For three days the remaining men waited ad- 
vices from their pioneers, and then followed the 
guides sent them to the shore, Balboa, armed with 
his sword and buckler, rushing into the water to 
his middle, and claiming possession of that vast sea 
and all its shores in the name of his king, for 
whom he pledged himself to defend it against all 
comers. 

Such was the discovery of the great South Sea, 
as Balboa named it, the Pacific Ocean, as Magellan 
soon after called it. The people of the coast told 
the Spaniards of a rich and mighty kingdom that 
lay to the south, and whose people had tame 



BALBOA AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC. 41 

animals to carry their burdens. The form of these 
they drew on the sand, their long necks convincing 
Balboa that they were camels, and that the land 
indicated must be Asia. They really represented 
the llama of Peru, an animal resembling the camel 
in form. 

After remaining for some time on the coast, 
gathering all the information he could obtain, Bal- 
boa led his travel-worn men back to Darien, re- 
solved to return with a stronger force next year and 
seek that distant land of gold. But this exploit 
was left for Pizarro, one of the ablest and bravest 
of the men who took part in this pioneer expe- 
dition. 

It was the 18th of January, 1514, when the ad- 
venturers reached their starting-point at Santa 
Maria, when the people heard of his discovery with 
the utmost joy. Messengers were at once sent to 
Spain, with an account of the remarkable exploit, 
which was received with an enthusiasm little less 
than had been the news of the discovery of the 
New World. If Columbus had discovered a new 
land, Balboa had matched it with the discovery of 
a new ocean, added to which was the story of a 
land of gold, for whose conquest Balboa asked for 
a reinforcement of a thousand men. 

Unfortunate as Columbus had been, the new dis- 
covery was destined to still greater ill-fortune, as 
we shall soon see. Before his messengers reached 
Spain a new governor, Pedrarias de Avila, had 
been appointed and had set sail, with fifteen ves- 



42 HISTORICAL TALES. 

sels and fifteen hundred men. Balboa had nearly 
five hundred men under his command, but he at once 
submitted to the decision of his king and accepted 
Pedrarias as his superior. The fifteen hundred 
new men landed in that pestilential climate, in the 
unhealthy season, paid bitterly for their impru- 
dence. A violent disease attacked them; scarcity 
of provisions made it worse; and within a month 
more than six hundred of them had died, while 
others hastened away from that noxious spot. 

At length news came that the king fully appre- 
ciated the splendid discovery of Balboa ; letters of 
high praise were received, and he was appointed 
Adelantado, or admiral of the South Sea, Pedrarias 
being ordered to support him in all his operations. 
The rivals now became reconciled, their union being 
made firmer by Pedrarias giving his daughter in 
marriage to Balboa. 

The adventurer now began active preparations 
for an exploration of the South Sea, materials for 
ship-building being conveyed, with the greatest 
labor, across the isthmus, and two brigantines con- 
structed. There was no lack of volunteers for the 
expedition, and the vessels were launched and sailed 
to the Pearl Islands, the inclement weather alone 
preventing them from going on to the coast of Peru. 

Thus there seemed a great career opening before 
Balboa at the very moment when adverse fate was 
gathering darkly around him. Pedrarias had 
grown jealous of his daring exploits and the fame 
that seemed his coming meed, and, cherishing 



BALBOA AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC. 43 

treacherous designs, by a crafty message induced 
him to return to Acla, his new capital. 

On arriving there, Balboa was at once seized by 
order of the governor, thrown into prison, and put 
on trial on a charge of disloyalty to the king and 
an intention to revolt against his superior. The 
judge was forced to condemn him to death, and the 
fatal sentence was at once carried into effect, the 
great discoverer being beheaded on the public 
square of Acla. Thus, in blood and treachery, 
ended the career of one of the ablest of the bold 
adventurers of Spain. 



THE ROMANTIC STORY OF THE 
PRINCE OF TEZCUCO. 

About a hundred years before the Spanish con- 
quest of the Aztecs, there reigned over the king- 
dom of Tezcuco, in the valley of Mexico, a monarch 
whose history is as interesting and romantic as any 
that can be found in the annals of Europe. His 
story was preserved by his descendants, and its 
principal events are as follows : 

The city of Tezcuco, the capital of the Acol- 
huans, stood on the eastern borders of the lake on 
whose opposite side was Mexico, the Aztec capital. 
About the year 1418 the Acolhuans were attacked 
by a kindred race, the Tepanecs, who, after a des- 
perate struggle, captured their city, killed their 
monarch, and subjugated their kingdom. The heir 
to the crown, the young Prince Nezahualcoyotl, 
concealed himself in the foliage of a tree when the 
triumphant foe broke into the palace, and from his 
hiding-place saw his father killed before his eyes. 
This was the opening event in a history as full of 
deeds of daring and perilous escapes as that of the 
* l Young Chevalier of English history. ' ' 

The young prince did not long remain at liberty. 

Soon after his flight from the city he fell into the 

hands of his foes, and was brought back and thrown 

into a dungeon. This led to the first romantic 

44 



ROMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OF TEZCTJCO. 45 

incident in his career. The governor of the fortress 
prison was an old servant of the royal family of 
Tezcuco, and aided the little captive to escape in 
disguise, taking his place in the dungeon. He paid 
for his loyalty with his life, but he willingly gave it 
in exchange for the liberty of the heir to the throne. 

The royal boy had friends in the Mexican capital. 
He was, in fact, closely related to the Aztec monarch, 
and through his good offices he was at length per- 
mitted to reside in that city. Afterwards he was 
allowed to return to Tezcuco, where for eight years 
he dwelt in privacy, studying under the teachers of 
his early youth, and unheeded by the party in power. 
Thus the boy grew to manhood, cherishing in his 
soul ardent hopes of regaining the throne of his 
ancestors. 

A change came when the Tepanec conqueror died 
and his son, Maxtla, succeeded to the throne. 
The new king was of a suspicious disposition, and 
when Nezahualcoyotl sought his capital to render 
him homage on his accession, Maxtla treated with 
disdain the little gift of flowers which the young 
prince laid at his feet, and turned his back on him 
in the presence of his chieftains. Evidently the 
palace was no place of safety for the Tezcucan 
prince, and, warned by a friend among the courtiers, 
he hastened to withdraw from the court and seek a 
refuge in his native city of Tezcuco. Here the 
tyrant dared not proceed openly against him. His 
popular manners had won him many friends, and 
the ancient subjects of his family looked upon him 



46 HISTORICAL TALES. 

as a coming leader who might win back for them 
their lost liberty. The prince had given evidence 
of the possession of talent and energy, and Maxtla, 
fearful of his growing popularity, resolved to 
make away with him by stratagem. He accord- 
ingly invited him to an evening's entertainment, 
where he had assassins ready to murder him. For- 
tunately, the tutor of the prince suspected the 
plot, and contrived to replace the youth by a person 
who strongly resembled him, and who became the 
victim of the fate intended for him. 

Maxtla, baffled in his murderous stratagem, now 
resolved to kill him openly, and sent a party of 
soldiers to the city, who were instructed to enter 
the palace, seize the prince, and slay him on the 
spot. Again the watchfulness of his old teacher 
saved him. Warned of his danger, and advised to 
flee, the prince refused to do so, but boldly awaited 
the assassins. 

When they reached the palace in which he re- 
sided, they found him playing at ball in the court- 
yard. He received them courteously, showing no 
suspicion of their errand, and invited them in to 
take some refreshment after their journey. While 
they were thus engaged, he strolled carelessly into 
an adjoining saloon; but the doors being open and 
the soldiers able to see through both apartments, 
his movements gave them no concern. It was the 
custom, however, when any one entered the pres- 
ence of a great lord, for the servants to throw aro- 
matics into a burning censer. This the prince's 



ROMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OF TEZCUCO. 47 

attendants did, and such clouds of incense arose as 
to hide him from the unsuspecting soldiers. Thus 
obscured, he entered a secret passage which led to 
a large earthen pipe, formerly employed to bring 
water to the palace. In this he concealed himself 
until nightfall, and then made his way into the 
suburbs, where he found shelter in the house of one 
of his father's former vassals. 

Maxtla, enraged to find that his proposed victim 
had twice escaped him, grew more determined on 
his death, and ordered immediate and thorough 
pursuit, promising to reward whoever should take 
him, dead or alive, with the hand of a noble lady 
and an ample domain. Troops of armed men 
scoured the country in every direction, searching 
all suspected places, and some of them entered the 
cottage in which he had taken refuge. Here there 
was a heap of the maguey fibres used in the manu- 
facture of cloth, and hid beneath this the fugitive 
escaped capture. Eut the chase soon grew so hot 
that he left this place for the wooded hill country 
between his state and the neighboring one of 
Tlascala, hoping to find safety in its thickets and 
caverns. 

The royal fugitive now led a wretched life, wan- 
dering from place to place, exposed to all the in- 
clemencies of the weather, remaining concealed by 
day, and stealing out at night in search of food. 
His pursuers, eager to win the enticing reward, 
kept up an active search, more than once coming 
dangerously near to his retreat. 



48 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Yery interesting stories are told of his adventures 
in this period of peril. The high rewards offered 
did not suffice to wean from him the attachment 
of the people, and more than once he owed his 
safety to their loyalty. Some of them submitted 
to torture, and even to loss of life, rather than 
betray his place of retreat to his enemies. Even 
many of the soldiers were his friends, and once, 
when hotly pursued, he took refuge among a small 
party of these, who were dancing around a large 
drum. To conceal him from his enemies they 
placed him in the drum and continued their dance 
around it. 

At another time the pursuers were so close to him 
that he just succeeded in turning the crest of a hill 
when they began to climb it on the other side. Here 
he fortunately found a girl who was reaping chia, a 
plant whose seeds were used in making palatable 
drinks. Telling her who he was and of his great 
danger, he got her to cover him up with a heap of 
the plants she had cut, and when the pursuers came 
up and asked if she had seen him, the faithful girl 
coolly replied that she had, and pointed out a path 
which she said he had taken. 

None of the natives showed any inclination to 
betray him, despite the richness of the promised 
rewards. 

"Would you not deliver up the prince if he 
came in your way ?' ' he asked of a peasant who did 
not recognize him. 

1 1 Not I, ' ' was the reply. 



ROMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OP TEZCUCO. 49 

"What! not for a fair lady's hand, and a rich 
domain as dowry ?' ' 

The peasant shook his head decisively and laughed 
in disdain. 

But, in spite of the loyalty of the people, the 
prince was in constant danger, and his situation, 
in the rough fastnesses of the hills and forests, 
became very distressing. 

" Leave me," he said to the faithful few who 
kept with him in his wanderings and shared his suf- 
ferings. "Leave me to my fate. Why should you 
throw away your lives for one whom fortune steadily 
persecutes ?' ' 

But they clung to his fortunes still, despite their 
danger and the fact that most of the great nobles 
of the land had sought safety and reward by an 
adhesion to the usurper. 

Meanwhile, events were working in favor of the 
fugitive. Maxtla had shown himself an oppressor, 
and his ambition and military successes had caused 
much alarm in the surrounding states, where his 
tyranny was contrasted with the mild rule of the 
former monarchs of Tezcuco. The friends of the 
young prince took advantage of this feeling, and 
succeeded in forming a coalition against his enemy. 
A day was fixed for a general rising, and on the 
date appointed Nezahualcoyotl found himself at 
the head of an army strong enough to face that of 
Maxtla and the Tepanecs. 

The two armies soon met and victory rested on 
the banner of the young prince, the forces of Maxtla 

4 



50 HISTORICAL TALES. 

being badly beaten. No longer a bunted fugitive, 
but at the bead of a victorious army, be marched in 
triumph to the capital which he had left with a 
price on his head, his joyful subjects crowding to 
the route of march to render homage to their right- 
ful sovereign. The Mexicans, who were angry at 
the tyrannic conduct of Maxtla, readily allied them- 
selves with the young victor, and a series of bloody 
battles followed, the usurper being at length defeated 
under the walls of his own capital. He was dragged 
from the baths, to which he had fled for conceal- 
ment, and sacrificed to the cruel gods of the Aztecs ; 
his royal city was razed to the ground, and its site 
was reserved as the great slave-market of the sur- 
rounding nations. 

Thus it was that Nezahualcoyotl came to the 
throne of his ancestors, where he was to prove 
himself the greatest monarch of whom we have 
any record in the American annals. The story of 
his reign is far too full of detail for the space we 
can give to it, but is of such interest that we may 
venture on a concise account of it, as an example 
of the career of the most illustrious of the ancient 
American sovereigns. 

The first thing the new monarch did was to pro- 
claim a general amnesty. He not only pardoned 
the rebel nobles, but raised some of them to posts 
of honor and confidence. This was not only politic 
but just, since their offences were mainly due to fear 
of the usurper. Under the circumstances he could 
safely treat them with magnanimity. 



ROMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OF TEZCUCO. 51 

He next remodelled the government of the king- 
dom, and framed a code of laws which seemed so 
wise that it was adopted by his allies, the Aztecs 
and Tlacopans. Councils of war, of finance, and 
of justice were established, and also a council of 
state, whose members acted as the immediate ad- 
visers of the king, and aided him in the despatch of 
business. But the most remarkable of these new 
departments was the 1 1 council of music,' ' which was 
devoted to the encouragement of science and art, 
and served as a general board of education for the 
country. Historical compositions and poems were 
recited before it, and altogether it indicated a degree 
of civilization which we would scarcely look for in 
any part of ancient America. Its historians, orators, 
and poets became celebrated throughout the country, 
the allied monarchs presided over its deliberations, 
and among its chief bards was the king himself, who 
entered into impartial competition with his subjects 
for the prizes given for the best poems. Many of his 
odes were long preserved, and may perhaps still rest 
in the dusty archives of Mexico or Spain. 

The far-seeing monarch did not content himself 
with writing poetry, or encouraging historians, — 
who wrote subject to the penalty that any one who 
wilfully lied should be punished with death, — but 
he sought to develop all the arts. Agriculture was 
greatly encouraged, the population rapidly in- 
creased, new towns and cities sprang up, and the 
borders of the nation were extended by successful 
wars. He made his capital the most stately city 



52 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of the land. Special edifices were built for his no- 
bles, whom he wished to reside at the court. There 
were more than four hundred of these palatial man- 
sions, but far exceeding them in magnificence was 
the grand palace he built for himself. This covered 
a space of three thousand seven hundred feet in 
length and nearly three thousand feet in width. A 
wall surrounded it, enclosing an outer court which 
formed the great market-place of the city, and an 
inner one surrounded by the council chambers and 
halls of justice. There were apartments for ambas- 
sadors from other states, and a spacious saloon in 
which the poets and men of science met to study 
and converse. Here also were kept the public 
archives. 

The royal apartments adjoined this inner court, 
and rivalled in beauty those of Oriental lands. Al- 
abaster or stucco of rich tints covered some of the 
walls, while others were hung with tapestries of 
the gorgeous Indian feather-work. Long arcades 
and winding pathways bordered with verdure led to 
gardens where were baths and sparkling fountains 
shadowed by lofty trees. Fish of various kinds 
stocked the basins, and in rich aviaries were birds 
of glowing tropical plumage. Many birds and 
animals were reproduced in gold and silver with 
wonderful fidelity to nature. In the inner apart- 
ments dwelt the wives and children of the monarch, 
who were as numerous as those of an Eastern 
sultan. Such was the famous palace, in which 
were three hundred apartments, some of them fifty 



BOMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OP TEZCUCO. 53 

yards square. It is said that two hundred thou- 
sand workmen were employed in building it. In 
this splendid residence dwelt a monarch who in his 
youthful days had been glad to share with wild an- 
imals a shelter in the thickets and caverns of the 
mountains. 

Nezahualcoyotl did not confine his love for mag- 
nificence to this palatial residence. Beautiful villas 
were built in various picturesque localities and 
adorned with all the requisites of pleasure and 
comfort. His favorite retreat from the cares of 
office was built on a rounded hill about six miles 
from the city. Here were terraced gardens reached 
by a stairway of five hundred and twenty steps, 
many of them hewn in the native rock. In the 
summit garden was a reservoir kept filled with 
water by an aqueduct carried on masonry buttresses 
for several miles over hill and valley. In its centre 
was a large rock, on which were carved in hiero- 
glyphics the principal events of each year of the 
king' s reign. 

Lower down were other reservoirs, adorned with 
statuary, and yielding water to channels that ran 
through the gardens or to cascades that tumbled 
riotously over the rocks. Here were marble porti- 
coes and pavilions, and baths cut in the solid rock, 
which the natives still show to visitors under the 
title of the "Baths of Montezuma." Near the 
base of the hill, amid lofty groves of cedar, rose 
the royal villa, with its light arcades and airy halls, 
affording a delightful relief to the monarch from 



54 HISTORICAL TALES. 

the duties of the court. Eelics of this villa and 
garden still remain to attest their former beauty, 
and indicate that this Indian king lived in a mag- 
nificence resembling that of the far-famed court of 
the caliph Haroun-al-Baschid. 

He was like the celebrated caliph of the ' ' Ara- 
bian Mghts" in another way, for it was his cus- 
tom to wander about the streets, conversing with 
the humblest of his people and learning their condi- 
tion and needs from their own words. Many anec- 
dotes are told of this kind, in which it was his de- 
light to reward merit and relieve distress. Some 
of these may be read with interest. 

On one occasion he met a boy who was gathering 
sticks in a field for fuel, and asked him why he did 
not go into the neighboring forest, where he would 
find plenty of them. 

1 ' I dare not do that, ' ' said the boy. " It' s the 
king' s wood, and he would punish me with death 
if I took sticks from there. ' ' 

< ' "What kind of man is your king ?' ' 

"He is a very hard man," answered the boy, 
1 ' for he takes from his people what God has given 
them. ' ' 

The boy was right; the forest laws in Tezcuco 
were as severe as those of Norman England. The 
king advised the boy not to heed such cruel laws 
but to help himself in the forest, for there was no 
one who would betray him. But the lad sturdily 
refused, and told his tempter that he was a traitor 
who wished to bring him into trouble. 



ROMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OF TEZCUCO. 55 

The next day the boy and his parents were sent 
for to come to the palace. They obeyed with won- 
der and dread, and the boy was filled with terror 
on seeing the king and recognizing him as the man 
with whom he had talked so freely. But the good- 
natured monarch bade him not to fear, and thanked 
him for the lesson he had given his king, praising 
his respect for the laws and commending his parents 
for bringing up their son so wisely. He dismissed 
them with liberal presents, and afterwards gave 
orders that any one might gather fallen wood in the 
forest, if they did not interfere with the standing 
timber. 

Another adventure was with a poor woodman 
and his wife. The man, as he stood in the market- 
place with his little store, complained bitterly of his 
lot, as compared with that of those who lived idly 
amid luxuries in the palace. The wife bade him be 
careful, as he might be overheard in his complaints. 
The king, looking down on the market from a lat- 
ticed window, and amusing himself with the chatter 
of the market people, heard the words of the couple, 
and ordered them to be brought into his presence. 

He asked the frightened pair what they had said, 
and was pleased to find that they answered him 
truly. Then he bade them reflect that if he had 
great wealth, he had great demands upon it ; that he 
who had a nation to govern could not lead an idle 
life ; and told them " to be more cautious in future, 
as walls had ears. ' ' He then dismissed them, after 
giving them a quantity of cloth and a good supply 



56 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of cacao, — the coin of the country. l ' Go, ' ' he said ; 
' ' with the little you now have, you will be rich j 
while, with all my riches, I shall still be poor. ' ' 

Of all the stories told of this famous monarch, 
there is only one not to his credit, and of this we 
may speak in passing, as it bears a remarkable 
rememblance to that told in the Bible of David and 
Uriah. He fell in love with a beautiful maiden, 
who was betrothed to an old lord of his kingdom, 
and to obtain her hand he bade the old man take 
command of a warlike expedition against the Tlas- 
calans. Two chiefs were bidden to keep near him 
and bring him into the thick of the fight, that he 
might lose his life, which the king said he had for- 
feited by a great crime. The old man suspected 
what was meant, and said so in a farewell enter- 
tainment to his friends. He was correct in his 
prophecy ; like Uriah, he soon fell in battle, and the 
royal lover's path was clear. 

The king now secretly offered his hand and heart 
to the maiden, who was by no means inconsolable 
for the loss of her old lover, and willingly accepted. 
To prevent any suspicion of what he had done, he 
had the maiden brought to his villa to witness some 
ceremony there. Standing on a balcony of the 
palace, the king pretended to be struck with her 
beauty, and asked, "Who is the lovely young 
woman, yonder in the garden?" Some of those 
present soon learned her name and rank, which was 
that of a princess of the royal house of Mexico. 
She was asked to enter the palace and receive the 



ROMANTIC STORY OF THE PRINCE OF TEZCTTCO. 57 

attention due to her station, and the king was not 
long in publicly declaring his love. The marriage 
soon after took place, in the presence of his brother 
monarchs of Mexico and Tlacopan, and with great 
pomp and ceremony. 

Such was the one blot in the history of this 
famous monarch. Aside from this act of treachery, 
it is remarkable to find so great and high-minded 
a monarch in the early annals of the nations of 
Mexico, and one whose history is so full of romantic 
adventure. 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF COR- 
TEZ AND THE SPANIARDS, 

There is no chapter in all history more crowded 
with interesting and romantic events than the story 
of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards under 
Cortez. And of all these records of desperate daring 
and wonderful success, the most extraordinary is 
the tale of the Noche Triste, the terrible night- 
retreat of the Spaniards from the Aztec capital. 
"No one can read this story, and that of the remark- 
able victory of Otumba which followed it, without 
feeling that Cortez and his men were warriors 
worthy of the most warlike age. This oft-told 
story we shall here again relate. 

In a preceding tale we described how Cortez set 
out from Cuba on his great expedition, with a few 
hundred soldiers and a small number of cannon, mus- 
kets, and horses. It may briefly be stated here that 
he sought to conquer a warlike and powerful nation 
with this insignificant force, less than a modern 
regiment. We might relate how he landed in Mex- 
ico; won, with the terror of his horses and guns 
and the valor of his men, victory in every battle; 
gained allies among the foes of the Aztecs; made 
his way into their capital; seized and held prisoner 
their emperor, Montezuma, and for a time seemed 
to be full master of the land. We might go on to 
58 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF CORTEZ. 59 

tell how at length the Mexicans rose in fury, at- 
tacked the Spaniards with the courage of despera- 
tion, mortally wounded their own emperor, and at 
length brought the invaders into such terrible straits 
that they were forced to fight their way out of the 
city as their last hope of life. 

To understand what followed, it must be stated 
that the city of Mexico lay, not in the open country, 
but on an island in the centre of a large lake, and 
that all the roads leading to it passed over narrow 
causeways of earth across this lake. Each of these 
causeways was broken at intervals by wide ditches, 
with bridges crossing them. But the Aztecs had 
removed these bridges, and thus added immensely 
to the difficulty of the night-march which the des- 
perate Spaniards were obliged to make. 

It was at midnight on the 1st of July, 1520, that 
Cortez and his men threw open the gates of the 
palace fortress in which they had long defended 
themselves against the furious assaults of thousands 
of daring foes. The night was dark and cloudy, 
and a drizzling rain was falling. ISTot an enemy 
was to be seen, and as they made their way with as 
little noise as possible along the great street of 
Tlacopan, all was hushed in silence. Hope rose in 
their hearts. The tramp of the horses and the 
rumble of the guns and baggage-wagons passed un- 
heard, and they reached the head of the causeway 
without waking a sleeping Aztec warrior. 

Here was the first break in the causeway, and 
they had brought with them a bridge to lay across 



60 HISTORICAL TALES. 

it. But here also were some Indian sentinels, who 
fled in haste on seeing them, rousing the sleeping city 
with their cries. The priests on the summit of the 
great temple pyramid were also on the watch, and 
when the shouts of alarm reached their ears from 
below, they sounded their shells and beat their huge 
drum, which was only heard in times of peril or 
calamity. Instantly the city broke from its slumber, 
and as the leading Spaniards crossed the bridge a 
distant sound was heard, which rapidly approached. 
Soon from every street and lane poured enemies, 
flinging stones and arrows into the crowded ranks 
of the Spaniards as they came. On the lake was 
heard a splashing sound, as of many oars, and the 
war-cry of a host of combatants broke on the air. 
A brief interval had sufficed to change the silence 
into a frightful uproar of sound and the restful 
peace into the fast growing tumult of furious battle. 

The Spaniards pushed steadily along the cause- 
way, fighting only to drive back the assailants who 
landed from their canoes and rushed in fury upon 
the marching ranks. The horsemen spurred over 
them, riding them down ; the men on foot cut them 
down with their swords, or hurled them backward 
with the butts of their guns ; the Indian allies of 
the Spaniards attacked them fiercely, and the roar 
of war spread far through the gloom of the night. 

Onward marched the Spaniards, horse and foot ; 
onward creaked and rumbled the artillery and the 
wagons j and the second canal in the causeway was 
reached while the rear files were not yet across the 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF CORTEZ. 61 

first. The Spaniards had made a fatal mistake in 
bringing with them only one bridge. "When the 
last of the retreating force was across this, a vig- 
orous effort was made to raise it and carry it to 
the canal in front, but in vain. The weight of men, 
horses, and cannon had wedged it so firmly in the 
earth and stones that it could not be moved. Every 
nerve was strained to lift the heavy mass, until, 
many of the workmen being killed and all wounded 
by the torrent of Aztec missiles, they were forced 
to abandon it. 

When the dread tidings that the bridge could not 
be raised spread through the crowded host, a cry 
of despair arose that almost drowned the sounds of 
conflict. All means of retreat were cut off. Before 
them lay a deep and yawning ditch. Behind them 
pressed an army of assailants. On each side hun- 
dreds of canoes dashed on the causeway, yielding 
foes who rushed in fury upon their crowded ranks. 
All hope seemed lost. All discipline was at an end. 
Every one thought only of saving his own life, 
without regard to the weak or wounded. The 
leading files, gathered on the brink of the gulf, were 
pressed forward by the rear. The horsemen in 
front dashed into the water and swam across, but 
some of the horses failed to climb the steep and 
slippery bank, and rolled back with their mail-clad 
riders headlong into the lake. 

After them pell mell came the infantry, some 
seeking to swim, others forced into the water to 
sink to a muddy death ; many of them slain by the 



62 HISTORICAL TALES. 

arrows and war-clubs of the Aztecs ; others, wounded 
or stunned, dragged into the canoes and carried 
away to be sacrificed to the terrible war-god of the 
pagan foe. Along the whole length of the cause- 
way, from ditch to ditch, the contest raged fearfully. 
The Aztecs, satisfied that they had now got their 
detested foes in their power, fought like demons, 
grappling with the Christians and rolling with them 
down the sloping way together ; seeking to take 
their enemies alive that they might be kept for the 
bloody sacrifice. 

"With the horrid shouts of the combatants, the 
cries of vengeance and groans of agony, the prayers 
to the saints and the blessed Yirgin, mingled the 
screams of women, of whom there were several, 
both Spaniard and Indian, in the Christian ranks. 
One of these, Maria de Estrada, fought as valiantly 
as any of the warriors, battling stanchly with broad- 
sword and target in the thickest of the fray, and 
proving herself as valiant a soldier as the best. 

During this terrible contest, Cortez was not at 
rest. He was everywhere, ordering, fighting, in- 
spiring, seeking to restore the lost discipline to his 
ranks. Conscious that all was lost unless the fatal 
ditch could be crossed, and feeling that life must be 
considered before wealth, he hurried forward every- 
thing, heavy guns, ammunition-wagons, baggage- 
vans, and hurled them into the water along with 
the spoil of the Spaniards, bales of costly goods, 
chests of solid ingots, everything that would serve 
to fill the fatal gap. "With these were mingled 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF CORTEZ. 63 

bodies of men and horses, drowned in that deadly- 
ditch, the whole forming a terrible pathway across 
which the survivors stumbled and clambered until 
they reached the other side. 

Cortez, riding forward, found a spot in the ditch 
that was fordable, and here, with the water up to 
his saddle-girths, he tried to bring order out of con- 
fusion, and called his followers to this path to safety. 
But his voice was lost in the turmoil, and with a 
few cavaliers who kept with him, he pressed forward 
to the van, doubly saddened by seeing his favorite 
page, Juan de Salazar, struck down in death by his 
side. 

Here he found the valiant Gonzalo de Sandoval, 
who, with about twenty other cavaliers, had led the 
van, composed of two hundred Spanish foot-soldiers. 
They were halted before the third and final breach 
in the causeway, a ditch as wide and deep as those 
which had been passed. Fortunately it was not so 
closely beset by the enemy, who were still engaged 
with the centre and rear, and the gallant cavaliers 
plunged without hesitation into the water, followed 
by the foot, some swimming, some clinging des- 
perately to the manes and tails of the horses, some 
carried to the bottom by the weight of the fatal 
gold with which they were heavily laden. On 
leaving the fortress in which they had so long de- 
fended themselves, much of the gold which they 
had gathered was necessarily abandoned. Cortez 
told the soldiers to take what they wished of it, 
but warned them not to overload themselves, say- 



64 HISTORICAL TALES. 

ing, "He travels safest in the dark night who 
travels lightest." Many of those who failed to 
regard this wise counsel paid for their cupidity 
with their death. 

Those who safely passed this final ditch were at 
the end of their immediate peril. Soon they were 
off the causeway and on solid ground, where the roar 
of the battle came more faintly to their ears. But 
word came to them that the rear-guard was in 
imminent danger and would be overwhelmed unless 
relieved. It seemed an act of desperation to return, 
but the valiant and warm-hearted cavaliers did not 
hesitate when this cry for aid was heard. Turning 
their horses, they galloped back, pushed through 
the pass, swam the canal again, and rode into the 
thick of the fight on the opposite section of the 
causeway. 

The night was now passing, and the first gray 
light of day was visible in the east. By its dim 
illumination the frightful combat could be seen in 
all its horrid intensity. Everywhere lay dead 
bodies of Christian or pagan; the dark masses of 
the warriors could be seen locked in deadly strug- 
gle crowding the blood-stained causeway ; while the 
lake, far and near, was crowded with canoes, filled 
with armed and ardent Aztec warriors, yelling their 
triumphant war-cry. 

Cortez and his companions found Alvarado, who 
led the rear, unhorsed and wounded, yet fighting 
like a hero. His noble steed, which had borne him 
safely through many a hard fight, had fallen under 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF CORTEZ. 65 

him. With a handful of followers he was des- 
perately striving to repel the overwhelming tide of 
the enemy which was pouring on him along the 
causeway, a dozen of the Indians falling for every 
Spaniard slain. The artillery had done good work 
in the early part of the contest, but the fury of the 
assault had carried the Aztecs up to and over the 
guns, and only a hand-to-hand conflict remained. 
The charge of the returning cavaliers created a 
temporary check, and a feeble rally was made, but 
the flood of foes soon came on again and drove 
them resistlessly back. 

Cortez and the cavaliers with him were forced to 
plunge once more into the canal, not all of them 
this time escaping. Alvarado stood on the brink 
for a moment, uncertain what to do, death behind 
him and deadly peril before. He was a man of 
great strength and agility, and despair now gave 
him courage. Setting his long lance firmly on the 
wreck that strewed the bottom, he sprang vigor- 
ously forward and cleared the wide gap at a bound, 
a feat that filled all who saw it with amazement, 
the natives exclaiming, as they beheld the seemingly 
impossible leap, "This is truly the Tonatiuh, — the 
child of the Sun !" This name they had given Al- 
varado from his fair features and flaxen hair. How 
great the leap was no one has told us, though the 
name of ' ' Alvarado's leap' ' still clings to the spot. 

Thus ended the frightful noche triste, or ' ' dole- 
ful night." Cortez led the remnant of his men off 
the causeway, a feeble, wounded, straggling few, 

5 



66 HISTORICAL TALES. 

faltering from weariness and loss of blood. Fortu- 
nately, the Aztecs, attracted by the rich spoil that 
strewed the ground, did not pursue, or it is doubt- 
ful if a man of the Spaniards, in their worn and 
wounded state, would have survived. How many 
perished in that night of dread no one knows. A 
probable estimate is about five hundred Spaniards 
and four thousand natives, nearly all the rear-guard 
having fallen. Of forty-six horses, half had been 
slain. The baggage, the guns, the ammunition, the 
muskets, and nearly all the treasure were gone. 
The only arms left the warriors were their swords 
and a few damaged cross-bows, while their mail was 
broken, their garments were tattered, their proud 
crests and banners gone, their bright arms soiled, 
and only a miserable and shattered fragment of 
their proud force was left, these dragging them- 
selves along with pain and difficulty. 

Day after day passed as the Spaniards and their 
allies, the Tlascalans, — inveterate enemies of the 
Aztecs, — slowly moved away from that blood- 
stained avenue of death, now little molested by 
their foes, and gradually recovering from their 
fatigue. On the seventh morning they reached the 
mountain height which overlooks the plain of 
Otumba, a point less than thirty miles from the 
capital. This plain they were obliged to traverse on 
their way to Tlascala, their chosen place of retreat. 

As they looked down on the broad level below 
them they saw with shrinking hearts why they had 
not been as yet molested. A mighty host filled the 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF CORTEZ. 67 

whole valley from side to side, their arms and stand- 
ards glistening in the sun, their numbers so great 
that the stoutest heart among the Spaniards viewed 
them with dismay, and Cortez, daring and hopeful 
as he was, felt that his last hour had now surely 
come. 

But this stout leader was not the man to give way 
to despair. There was nothing to do but to cut 
their way through this vast array or perish in the 
attempt. To retreat would have been to invite sure 
destruction. Fortunately, they had rested for two 
nights and a day, and men and horses had regained 
much of their old strength. "Without hesitation, 
Cortez prepared for the onset, giving his force as 
broad a front as possible, and guarding its flanks 
with his little body of horse, now twenty in all. 
Then, with a few words of encouragement, in which 
he told them of the victories they had won, and 
with orders to his men to thrust, not strike, with 
their swords, and to the horsemen on no account to 
lose their lances, and to strike at the faces of the foe, 
he gave the word to advance. 

At first the natives recoiled from the stern and 
fierce onset, rolling back till they left a wide lane for 
the passage of their foes. But they quickly rallied 
and poured on the little band in their midst, until it 
seemed lost in the overwhelming mass. A terrible 
fray followed, the Christians, as one writer says, 
standing ' ' like an islet against which the breakers, 
roaring and surging, spend their fury in vain." 
The struggle was one of man to man, the Tlascalans 



68 HISTORICAL TALES. 

and Spaniards alike fighting with obstinate courage, 
while the little band of horsemen charged deep into 
the enemy's ranks, riding over them and cutting 
them down with thrust and blow, their onset giving 
fresh spirit to the infantry. 

But that so small a force could cut their way 
through that enormous multitude of armed and 
valiant enemies seemed impossible. As the minutes 
lengthened into hours many of the Tlascalans and 
some of the Spaniards were slain, and not a man 
among them had escaped wounds. Cortez received 
a cut on the head, and his horse was hurt so badly 
that he was forced to dismount and exchange it for 
a strong aminal from the baggage-train. The fight 
went on thus for several hours, the sun growing 
hotter as it rose in the sky, and the Christians, weak 
from their late wounds, gradually losing strength and 
spirit. The enemy pressed on in ever fresh num- 
bers, forcing the horse back on the foot, and throw- 
ing the latter into some disorder. With every 
minute now the conflict grew more hopeless, and it 
seemed as if nothing were left but to sell their lives 
as dearly as possible. 

At this critical juncture a happy chance changed 
the whole fortune of the day. Cortez, gazing with 
eagle eye around the field in search of some vision 
of hope, some promise of safety, saw at no great 
distance in the midst of the throng a splendidly 
dressed chief, who was borne in a rich litter and sur- 
rounded by a gayly attired body of young warriors. 
A head-dress of beautiful plumes, set in gold and 



THE FAMOUS RETREAT OF CORTEZ. 69 

gems, rose above him, and over this again was a 
short staff bearing a golden net, the standard of the 
Aztecs. 

The instant Cortez beheld this person and his 
emblem his eye lighted with triumph. He knew 
him for the commander of the foe, and the golden 
net as its rallying standard. Turning to the cava- 
liers beside him, he pointed eagerly to the chief, 
exclaiming, " There is our mark! Follow me!" 
Then, shouting his war-cry, he spurred his steed into 
the thick of the foe. Sandoval, Alvarado, and others 
spurred furiously after him, while the enemy fell 
back before this sudden and fierce assault. 

On swept the cavaliers, rending through the solid 
ranks, strewing their path with the dead and dying, 
bearing down all who opposed them. A few minutes 
of this furious onset carried them to the elevated spot 
on which were the Aztec chief and his body-guard. 
Thrusting and cutting with tiger-like strength and 
ferocity, Cortez rent a way through the group of 
young nobles and struck a furious blow at the Indian 
commander, piercing him with his lance and hurling 
him to the ground. A young cavalier beside him, 
Juan de Salamanca, sprang from his horse and 
despatched the fallen chief. Then he tore away the 
banner and handed it to Cortez. 

All this was the work almost of a moment. Its 
effect was remarkable. The guard, overwhelmed 
by the sudden onset, fled in a panic, which was 
quickly communicated to their comrades. The 
tidings spread rapidly. The banner of the chief 



70 HISTORICAL TALES. 

had disappeared. He had been slain. The blind- 
ness of panic suddenly infected the whole host, 
which broke and fled in wild terror and confusion. 
The Spaniards and Tlascalans were not slow in 
taking advantage of this new aspect of affairs. 
Forgetting their wounds and fatigue, they dashed 
in revengeful fury on the flying foe, cutting them 
down by hundreds as they fled. Not until they had 
amply repaid their losses on the bloody causeway 
did they return to gather up the booty which 
strewed the field. It was great, for, in accordance 
with Cortez's instructions, they had struck espe- 
cially at the chiefs, and many of these were richly 
ornamented with gold and jewels. 

Thus ended the famous battle of Otumba, the 
most remarkable victory, in view of the great dis- 
parity of forces, ever won in the New World. 
Chance gave the Spaniards victory, but it was a 
chance made useful only by the genius of a great 
commander. The following day the fugitive army 
reached the soil of Tlascala and were safe among 
their friends. History has not a more heroic story 
to tell than that of their escape from the Aztec capi- 
tal, nor a more striking one than that of their sub- 
sequent return and conquest. 



PIZARRO AND THE INC AS 
GOLDEN RANSOM. 

The great expedition to the land of gold, which 
Yasco Nunez de Balboa had planned to make, was 
left by his death to be carried out by one of his 
companions in the discovery of the South Sea, the 
renowned Francisco Pizarro. It was an expedition 
full of romantic adventure, replete with peril and 
suffering, crowded with bold ventures and daring 
deeds. But we must pass over all the earlier of 
these and come at once to the climax of the whole 
striking enterprise, the story of the seizure of the 
Inca of Peru in the midst of his army and the tale 
of his incredible ransom. 

Many and strange were the adventures of Pizarro, 
from the time when, with one small vessel and 
about one hundred desperate followers, he sailed 
from Panama in 1524, and ventured on the great 
unknown Pacific, to the time when, in 1531, he 
sailed again with one hundred and eighty men and 
about thirty horses and landed on the coast of Peru, 
which he designed to conquer as Cortez had con- 
quered Mexico. A faithless and cruel wretch was 
this Francisco Pizarro, but he had the military 
merits of courage, enterprise, daring and persist- 
ency, and these qualities carried him through suffer- 
ings and adversities that would have discouraged 

71 



72 HISTORICAL TALES. 

almost any man and brought him to magical success 
in the end. It was the beacon of gold that lured 
him on through desperate enterprises and deadly 
perils and led him to the El Dorado of the Spanish 
adventurers. 

Landing and capturing a point on the coast of 
Peru, he marched with his handful of bold follow- 
ers, his horses and guns, eastward into the empire, 
crossed the vast and difficult mountain wall of the 
Andes, and reached the city of Caxamalca. Close 
by this city the Inca, Atahualpa, lay encamped 
with an army, for a civil war between him and his 
brother Huascar had just ended in the defeat and 
imprisonment of the latter. 

Desperate was the situation of the small body of 
Spanish soldiers, when, in the late afternoon of the 
15th of November, 1532, they marched into Cax- 
amalca, which they found empty of inhabitants. 
About one hundred more men, with arms and horses, 
had joined them, but in a military sense they were 
but a handful still, and they had every reason to 
dread the consequences of their rash enterprise. 

All seemed threatening, — the desertion of the city 
by its people, the presence of the Inca, with a 
powerful army, within a league's distance, the 
probable hostility of the Indian emperor. All the 
Spaniards had to rely on were their arms, — cannon, 
muskets and swords of steel, — new and terrible 
weapons in that land, and their war-horses, whose 
evolutions had elsewhere filled the soul of the Indian 
with dismay. Yet what were these in the hands of 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA's GOLDEN RANSOM. 73 

less than three hundred men, in the presence of a 
strong and victorious army ? Filled with anxiety, 
Pizarro at once despatched a body of horsemen, led 
by his brother Hernando and the famous cavalier 
Hernando de Soto, to visit the Inca in his camp. 

Great was the astonishment of the Indian soldiers 
as this strange cavalcade, with clang of arms and 
blast of trumpet, swept by, man and horse seeming 
like single beings to their unaccustomed eyes. 
De Soto, the best mounted of them all, showed his 
command of his steed in the Inca's presence, by 
riding furiously over the plain, wheeling in graceful 
curves, and displaying all the vigor and beauty of 
skilled horsemanship, finally checking the noble 
animal in full career when so near the Inca that 
some of the foam from its lips was thrown on the 
royal garments. Yet, while many of those near 
drew back in terror, Atahualpa maintained an 
unflinching dignity and composure, hiding every 
show of dread, if any such inspired him. 

To the envoys he said, through an interpreter the 
Spaniards had brought, ' ' Tell your captain that I 
am keeping a fast, which will end to-morrow morn- 
ing. I will then visit him with my chieftains. 
Meanwhile, let him occupy the public buildings on 
the square, and no other." 

Eefreshments were now offered the Spaniards, 
but these they declined, as they did not wish to 
dismount. Yet they did not refuse to quaff the 
sparkling drink offered them in golden vases of 
great size brought by beautiful maidens. Then they 



74 HISTORICAL TALES. 

rode slowly back, despondent at what they had seen, 
— the haughty dignity of the Inca and the strength 
and discipline of his army. 

That night there were gloomy forebodings through- 
out the camp, which were increased as its occupants 
saw the watch-fires of the Peruvian army, glittering 
on the hill-sides, as one said, ' ' as thick as the stars 
in heaven." Scarcely a man among them except 
Pizarro retained his courage; but he went round 
among his men, bidding them to keep up their 
spirits, and saying that Providence would not 
desert them if they trusted to their strength and 
their cause, as Christians against pagans. They 
were in Heaven's service and God would aid them. 

He then called a council of his officers and un- 
folded to them a desperate plan he had conceived. 
This was no less than to lay an ambuscade for the 
Inca and seize him in the face of his army, holding 
him as a hostage for the safety of the Christians. 
Nothing less decisive than this would avail them, 
he said. It was too late to retreat. At the first 
sign of such a movement the army of the Inca 
would be upon them, and they would all be de- 
stroyed, either there or in the intricacies of the 
mountain-passes. Nor could they remain inactive 
where they were. The Inca was crafty and hostile, 
and would soon surround them with a net-work of 
peril, from which they could not escape. To fight 
him in the open field was hazardous, if not hope- 
less. The only thing to do was to take him by sur- 
prise on his visit the next day, drive back his fol- 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA's GOLDEN RANSOM. 75 

lowers with, death and terror, seize the monarch, 
and hold him prisoner. With the Inca in their 
hands his followers would not dare attack them, and 
they would be practically masters of the empire. 

"No doubt Pizarro in this plan had in mind that 
which Cortez had pursued in Mexico. He would 
take care that Atahualpa should not be killed by 
his own people, as Montezuma had been, and while 
the monarch remained alive they would have the 
strongest guarantee of safety. This bold plan 
suited the daring character of Pizarro' s officers. 
They agreed with him that in boldness lay their 
only hope of success or even of life, and they left 
the council with renewed confidence to prepare for 
the desperate enterprise. 

It was noon the next day before the Inca appeared, 
his litter borne on the shoulders of his chief nobles 
and surrounded by others, so glittering with orna- 
ments that, to quote from one of the Spaniards, 
1 ' they blazed like the sun. ' ' A large number of 
workmen in front swept every particle of rubbish 
from the road. Behind, and through the fields that 
lined the road, marched a great body of armed men. 
Eut when within half a mile of the city the pro- 
cession halted, and a messenger was sent to the 
Spaniards to say that the Inca would encamp there 
for that night and enter the city the following 
morning. 

These tidings filled Pizarro with dismay. His 
men had been under arms since daybreak, the 
cavalry mounted, and the infantry and artillerymen 



76 HISTORICAL TALES. 

at their posts. He feared the effect on their spirits 
of a long and trying suspense in such a critical sit- 
uation, and sent word back to the Inca begging 
him to come on, as he had everything ready for his 
entertainment and expected to sup with him that 
night. This message turned the monarch from his 
purpose, and he resumed his march, though the 
bulk of his army was left behind, only a group of 
unarmed men accompanying him. He evidently 
had no fear or suspicion of the Spaniards. Little 
did he know them. 

It was near the hour of sunset when the proces- 
sion reached the city, several thousand Indians 
marching into the great square, borne high above 
whom was the Inca, seated in an open litter on a 
kind of throne made of massive gold, while a collar 
of emeralds of great size and beauty encircled his 
neck and his attire was rich and splendid. He 
looked around him with surprise, as there was not 
a Spaniard to be seen, and asked, in tones of an- 
noyance, "Where are the strangers?" 

At this moment Pizarro' s chaplain, a Dominican 
friar, came forward, with Bible and crucifix in hand, 
and began to expound to him the Christian doc- 
trines, ending by asking him to acknowledge him- 
self a vassal of the king of Spain. The Inca, when 
by aid of the interpreter he had gained a glimpse 
of the priest's meaning, answered him with high 
indignation, and when the friar handed him the 
Bible as the authority for his words, he flung it 
angrily to the earth, exclaiming, — 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA's GOLDEN RANSOM. 77 

1 ' Tell your comrades that they shall give me an 
account of their doings in my land. I will not go 
from here till they have made me full satisfaction 
for all the wrongs they have committed. ' ' 

Picking up the sacred volume, the friar hastened 
to Pizarro, told him what had been said, and cried 
out, — 

"Do you not see that while we stand here 
wasting our breath in talking with this dog, full of 
pride as he is, the fields are filling with Indians ? 
Set on, at once j I absolve you. ' ' 

Pizarro waved a white scarf in the air, the signal 
agreed upon. A gun was fired from the fortress. 
Then, with the Spanish war-cry of ' ' St. Jago and at 
them !" Pizarro and his followers sprang out into 
the square. From every avenue of the great build- 
ing they occupied poured armed men, horse and 
foot, and rushed in warlike fury upon the Indians. 
Taken utterly by surprise, the latter were hurled 
back in confusion. Their ranks rent by the balls 
from cannon and musketry, hundreds of them tram- 
pled under foot by the fierce charges of the cavalry, 
pierced by lances or cut down by swords, they were 
driven resistlessly back, falling in multitudes as 
they wildly sought to escape. 

The massacre went on with especial intensity 
around the Inca, his nobles, none of them armed, 
struggling with what strength they could in his 
defence. ' ' Let no one who values his life strike at 
the Inca!" shouted Pizarro, fearing his valued 
prize might be slain in the wild tumult. Fiercer 



78 HISTORICAL TALES. 

still grew the struggle around him. The royal litter 
swayed back and forth, and, as some of its bearers 
were slain, it was overturned, the monarch being 
saved from a fall to the ground by Pizarro and some 
others, who caught him in their arms. With all 
haste they bore him into the fortress and put him 
under close guard. 

With the capture of the Inca all resistance was at 
at end. The unarmed Peruvians fled in terror from 
the fearful massacre. The soldiers in the fields were 
seized with panic on hearing the fatal news, and 
dispersed in all directions, pursued by the Spanish 
cavalry, who cut them down without mercy. Not 
till night had fallen did Pizarro' s men cease the 
pursuit and return at the call of the trumpet to 
the bloody square of Caxamalca. In that frightful 
massacre not less than two thousand victims, per- 
haps many more, were slain, the most of them 
unarmed and helpless. That night Pizarro kept his 
word, that he would sup with Atahualpa, but it 
was a supper at which he might well have drunk 
blood. The banquet was served in one of the halls 
facing the great square, then thickly paved with 
the dead, the monarch, stunned by the calamity, 
sitting beside his captor at the dread meal. 

Let us now go forward to a still more spectacular 
scene in that strange drama, one which proved that 
the Spaniards had truly at length reached the 
' ' land of gold. ' ' The Inca was not long a prisoner 
before he discovered the besetting passion of the 
Spaniards, their thirst for gold. A party was sent 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA's GOLDEN RANSOM. 79 

to pillage his pleasure-house, and brought back a 
rich booty in gold and silver, whose weight and 
value filled the conquerors with delight. 

Thinking that he saw in this a hope of escaping 
from his captivity, the Inca one day said to Pizarro 
that if he would agree to set him free, he would 
cover the floor of the room in which they stood 
with gold. Pizarro listened with a smile of doubt. 
As he made no answer, the Inca said, earnestly, 
that "he would not merely cover the floor, but 
would fill the room with gold as high as he could 
reach, ' ' and he stood on tiptoe as he put his uplifted 
hand against the wall. This extraordinary offer 
filled Pizarro with intense astonishment. That such 
a thing could be done seemed utterly incredible, 
despite all they had learned of the riches of Peru. 
The avaricious conqueror, dazzled by the munificent 
offer, hastened to accept it, drawing a red line 
along the wall at the height the Inca had touched. 
How remarkable the ransom was may be judged 
from the fact that the room was about seventeen 
feet wide and twenty-two feet long and the mark on 
the wall nine feet high. To add to its value, the Inca 
offered to fill an adjoining but smaller room twice 
full with silver, and to do all this in the short time 
of two months. It would seem that he would need 
Aladdin's wonderful lamp to accomplish so vast and 
surprising a task. 

As soon as the offer was made and accepted, the 
Inca sent messengers to Cuzco, his capital city, and 
to the other principal places in his kingdom, with 



80 HISTORICAL TALES. 

orders to bring all the gold ornaments and utensils 
from his palaces and from the temples and other 
public buildings, and transport them in all haste to 
Caxamalca. While awaiting the golden spoil the 
monarch was treated with the fullest respect due to 
his rank, having his own private apartments and 
the society of his wives, while his nobles were per- 
mitted to visit him freely. The only thing the 
Spaniards took good care of was that he should be 
kept under close guard. 

He took one advantage of his measure of liberty. 
His brother and rival, Huascar, though a captive, 
might escape and seize the control of the state, and 
he learned that the prisoner had sent a private mes- 
sage to Pizarro, offering to pay for his liberty a 
much larger ransom than that promised by Ata- 
hualpa. The Inca was crafty and cruel enough to 
remove this danger from his path, if we may accept 
the evidence of his captors. At any rate the royal 
captive was soon after drowned, declaring with his 
dying breath that his rival would not long survive 
him, but that the white men would avenge his 
murder. Atahualpa told Pizarro, with a show of 
great sorrow and indignation, of his brother' s death, 
and when the Spaniard threatened to hold him 
responsible for it, the Inca protested that it had 
been done without his knowledge or consent by 
Huascar' s keepers, who feared that their captive 
might escape. However it occurred, Pizarro soon 
afterward learned that the news was true. It may 
be that he was well satisfied with the fact, as it 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA's GOLDEN RANSOM. 81 

removed a leading claimant for the throne from his 
path. 

Meanwhile, the ransom began to come in — slowly, 
for the distances were great, and the treasure had 
to be transported on foot by carriers. Most of it 
consisted of massive pieces of gold and silver plate, 
some of them weighing from fifty to seventy -five 
pounds. The Spaniards beheld with gleaming eyes 
the shining heaps of treasure, brought in on the 
shoulders of Indian porters, and carefully stored 
away under guard. On some days articles to the 
value of half a million dollars are said to have been 
brought in. 

Yet the vast weight in gold which was thus 
brought before them did not satisfy the avaricious 
impatience of the Spaniards. They made no allow- 
ance for distance and difficulty, and began to sus- 
pect the Inca of delaying the ransom until he could 
prepare a rising of his subjects against the strangers. 
When Atahualpa heard of these suspicions he was 
filled with surprise and indignation. < ' Not a man 
of my subjects would dare raise a finger without 
my orders, ' ' he said to Pizarro. ' ' Is not my life at 
your disposal ? What better security would you 
have of my good faith?" He ended by advising 
him to send some of his own men to Cuzco, where 
they could see for themselves how his orders were 
being obeyed. He would give them a safe-conduct, 
and they could superintend the work themselves. 

The three envoys sent were carried the whole 
distance of more than six hundred miles in litters 



82 HISTORICAL TALES. 

by relays of carriers, their route laying along the 
great military road of Peru and through many 
populous towns. Cuzco they found to be a large 
and splendid city. The great temple of the Sun 
was covered with plates of gold, which, by the 
Inca's orders, were being torn off. There were 
seven hundred of these plates in all, and a cornice 
of pure gold ran round the building. But this was 
so deeply set in the stone that it could not be re- 
moved. On their return, these messengers brought 
with them full two hundred loads of gold, besides 
great quantities of silver. 

Gradually the vast ransom offered by the Inca, 
far surpassing any paid by any other captive in the 
world' s history, was gathered in. The gold received 
came in a great variety of shapes, being wrought 
into goblets, ewers, salvers, vases, and other forms 
for ornament or use, utensils for temple or palace, 
tiles and plate used to decorate the public edifices, 
and curious imitations of plants and animals. The 
most beautiful and artistic of these was the repre- 
sentation of Indian corn, the ear of gold being 
sheathed in broad leaves of silver, while the rich 
tassels were made of the same precious metal. 
Equally admired was a fountain which sent up a 
sparkling jet of gold, with birds and animals of the 
same metal playing in the waters at its base. Some 
of these objects were so beautifully wrought as to 
compare favorably with the work of skilled European 
artists. 

The treasure gathered was measured in the room 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA'S GOLDEN RANSOM. 83 

in its original form, this being the compact, but 
even in this loose form the gold amounted to a sum 
equal, in modern money, to over fifteen millions of 
dollars, with a large value in silver in addition. All 
this was melted down into ingots and divided among 
the conquerors, with the exception of the royal 
fifth, reserved for the King of Spain. The latter 
included many of the most curious works of art. 
The share of Pizarro probably amounted to not less 
than a million dollars, and even the common soldiers 
received what was wealth to them. 

The ransom paid, what was the benefit to the 
Inca? Was he given his liberty, in accordance 
with the compact? Yes, the liberty which such 
men as Francisco Pizarro give to those whom they 
have injured and have reason to fear. The total 
ransom offered by Atahualpa had not been brought 
in, but the impatient Spaniards had divided the 
spoil without waiting for the whole, and the Inca 
demanded his freedom. De Soto, who was his chief 
friend among the Spaniards, told Pizarro of his 
demand, but could get from him no direct reply. 
His treacherous mind was brooding deeply over 
some dark project. 

Soon rumors became current among the soldiers 
of a design of revolt entertained by the natives. 
These spread and grew until an immense army was 
conjured up. The Inca was looked upon as the 
instigator of the supposed rising, and was charged 
with it by Pizarro. His denial of it had little 
effect, and the fortress was put in a state of defence, 



84 HISTORICAL TALES. 

while many of the soldiers began to demand the life 
of the Inca. To those demands Pizarro did not 
turn a deaf ear. Possibly they arose at his own 
instigation. 

Hernando Pizarro, who had shown himself a 
strong friend of the captive, was absent. De Soto, 
another of his friends, was sent at the head of an 
expedition to Huamachuco, a town a hundred miles 
away, where it was said the natives were in arms. 
Scarcely had he gone when Pizarro, seeming to 
yield to the demands of the soldiers, decided to 
bring Atahualpa to trial on the charges against him. 

A court was held, with Pizarro and his fellow- 
captain Almagro as the judges, an attorney -general 
being appointed for the crown and counsel for the 
prisoner. The crimes charged against the Inca 
were chiefly of a kind with which the Spaniards 
had nothing to do, among them the assassination 
of Huascar and the guilt of idolatry. These were 
simply to bolster up the only real charge, that of 
exciting an insurrection against the Spaniards. The 
whole affair was the merest show of a trial, and 
was hurried through without waiting for the return 
of De Soto, who could have given useful evidence 
about the insurrection. The culprit was adjudged 
guilty, and sentenced to be burnt alive that very 
night in the great square of Caxamalca ! 

It was a sentence that might well have been ex- 
pected as the termination of such a trial by such 
men. Pizarro, in fact, did not dare to set his cap- 
tive at liberty, if he proposed to remain in the 



PIZARRO AND THE INCA's GOLDEN RANSOM. 85 

country, and the cruel sentence, which was common 
enough at that day, was carried out except in one 
particular. As the poor Inca stood bound to the 
stake, with the fagots of his funeral pile heaped 
around him, Yalverde, the Dominican friar, made 
a last appeal to him to accept the cross and be bap- 
tized, promising him a less painful death if he would 
consent. The Inca, shrinking from the horror of 
the names, consented, and was duly baptized under 
the name of Juan de Atahualpa. He was then put 
to death in the Spanish manner, by the garrote, or 
strangulation. 

Thus died the Inca of Peru, the victim of the 
faith of a Pizarro. Great was the indignation of 
De Soto, on his return a day or two later from 
an expedition in which he had found no rebels, at 
what had been done. Pizarro tried to exculpate 
himself and blame others for deceiving him, but 
these told him to his face that he alone was respon- 
sible for the deed. There can be no doubt that 
they told the truth. 



GONZALO PIZARRO AND THE 
LAND OF CINNAMON. 

We have now to relate the most remarkable 
adventure in the story of the conquest of Peru, 
and one of the most remarkable in the history of 
the New "World, — the expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro 
to the upper waters of the Amazon and the pioneer 
voyage down that mighty river. 

Francisco Pizarro was well aided by his brothers 
in his great work of conquest, three of them — Her- 
nando, Juan, and Gonzalo — accompanying him to 
Peru, and all of them proving brave, enterprising, 
and able men. In 1540, eight years after the con- 
quest, Gonzalo was appointed by his brother gov- 
ernor of the territory of Quito, in the north of the 
empire, with instructions to explore the unknown 
country lying to the east, where the cinnamon tree 
was said to grow. Gonzalo lost no time in seeking 
his province, and made haste in starting on his 
journey of exploration to the fabled land of spices. 

It was early in the year that he set out on this 
famous expedition, with a force of three hundred 
and fifty Spaniards and four thousand Indians, one 
hundred and fifty of the whites being mounted. 
They were all thoroughly equipped and took with 
them a large supply of provisions and a great drove 
of hogs, five thousand in number, as some writers 
86 



GONZALO PIZARRO AND THE LAND OF CINNAMON. 87 

say. Yet with all this food they were to suffer 
from the extremes of famine. 

"We can but briefly tell the incidents of this ex- 
traordinary journey. At first it was easy enough. 
But when they left the land of the Incas and began 
to cross the lofty ranges of the Andes, they found 
themselves involved in intricate and difficult passes, 
swept by chilling winds. In this cold wilderness 
many of the natives found an icy grave, and during 
their passage a terrible earthquake shook the moun- 
tains, the earth in one place being rent asunder. 
Choking sulphurous vapors issued from the cavity, 
into whose frightful abyss a village of several hun- 
dred houses was precipitated. 

After the heights were passed and they descended 
to the lower levels, tropical heats succeeded the 
biting cold, and fierce storms of rain, accompanied 
by violent thunder and lightning, descended almost 
ceaselessly, drenching the travellers day after day. 
It was the rainy season of the tropics, and for more 
than six weeks the deluge continued, while the 
forlorn wanderers, wet and weary, could scarce drag 
themselves over the yielding and saturated soil. 

For several months this toilsome journey con- 
tinued, many a mountain stream and dismal morass 
needing to be crossed. At length they reached the 
Land of Cinnamon, the Canelas of the Spaniards, 
where were forests of the trees supposed by them 
to bear the precious bark. Yet had it been the 
actual cinnamon of the East Indies, it would have 
been useless to them in that remote and mountain- 



88 HISTORICAL TALES. 

walled wilderness. Here their journey, as origi- 
nally laid out, should have ended, but they were 
lured on by the statements of the wild tribes they 
met, they being told of a rich and populous land at 
ten days' journey in advance, in which gold could 
be found in abundance. 

Gold was a magic word to the Spaniards, and 
they went eagerly onward, over a country of broad 
savannahs which led to seemingly endless forests, 
where grew trees of stupendous bulk, some so large 
that the extended arms of sixteen men could barely 
reach around them. A thick net-work of vines and 
creepers hung in bright- colored festoons from tree 
to tree, beautiful to look at but very difficult to 
pass. The axe was necessary at every step of the 
way, while their garments, rotted with the incessant 
rains, were torn into rags by the bushes and brambles 
of the woodland. Their provisions had been long 
since spoiled by the weather, and their drove of 
swine had vanished, such of the animals as were not 
consumed having strayed into the woods and hills. 
They had brought with them nearly a thousand 
dogs, many of them of the ferocious bloodhound 
breed, and these they were now glad enough to kill 
and eat. When these were gone no food was to be 
had but such herbs and edible roots and small 
animals as the forest afforded. 

At length the disconsolate wanderers emerged on 
the banks of a broad river, the ISTapo, one of the 
great tributaries of the Amazon, issuing from the 
northern Andes to seek a home in the bosom of 



GONZALO PIZARRO AND THE LAND OP CINNAMON. 89 

that mighty stream. Gladdened by the sight, they 
followed its banks downward, hoping in this way to 
find an easier route. Thickets still beset their way, 
through which it needed all their strength to open 
a passage, and after going a considerable distance a 
loud and increasing noise met their ears. For miles 
they followed it as it gradually rose into a roar, and 
at length they reached a place where the stream 
rushed furiously down steep rapids, and at the end 
poured in a vast volume of foam down a magnificent 
cataract, twelve hundred feet in depth. 

This was the height of the fall as measured by 
the eyes of the wanderers, a guide not much to be 
relied on. The stream itself had narrowed until it 
was at this point not more than twenty feet wide, 
and the hungry wanderers determined to cross it, 
with the hope of finding beyond it a country yielding 
more food. A bridge was constructed by felling 
great trees across the chasm, the water here running 
through vertical walls several hundred feet in depth. 
Over this rude bridge men and horses made their 
way, only one Spaniard being lost by tumbling 
down the giddy depth. 

The country beyond the stream proved no better 
than that they had left, and the only signs of in- 
habitants they met were savage and hostile tribes 
of Indians, with whom they kept up a steady 
skirmish. Some of the more friendly told them 
that the fruitful land they sought was but a few 
days' journey down the river, and they went wearily 
on, day by day, as the promised land still fled before 



90 HISTORICAL TALES. 

their feet. Doubtless they were led by their own 
desires to misinterpret the words of the Indians. 

In the end Gonzalo Pizarro decided on building a 
vessel large enough to carry the baggage and the 
men too weak to walk. Timber was superabun- 
dant. The shoes of horses that had died or had 
been killed for food were wrought into nails. Pitch 
was obtained from gum-yielding trees. In place of 
oakum the tattered garments of the soldiers were 
used. It took two months to complete the difficult 
task, at the end of which time a rude but strong 
brigantine was ready, the first vessel larger than an 
Indian canoe that ever floated on the mighty waters 
of Brazil. It was large enough to carry half the 
Spaniards that remained alive after their months 
of terrible travel. 

Pizarro gave the command of the vessel to Fran- 
cisco de Orellana, a man in whose courage and fidel- 
ity he put full trust. The company now resumed 
its march more hopefully, following the course of 
the RTapo for weeks that lengthened into months, 
the brigantine keeping beside them and transport- 
ing the weaker whenever a difficult piece of country 
was reached. In this journey the last scraps of 
provisions were consumed, including their few re- 
maining horses, and they were so pressed by hun- 
ger as to eat the leather of their saddles and belts. 
Little food was yielded by the forest, and such 
toads, serpents, and other reptiles as they found 
were greedily devoured. 

Still the story of a rich country, inhabited by 



GONZALO PIZARRO AND THE LAND OF CINNAMON. 91 

a populous nation, was told by the wandering 
Indians, but it was always several days ahead. 
Pizarro at length decided to stop where he was 
and feed on the scanty forest spoil, while Orel- 
lana went down the stream in his brigantine to 
where, as the Indians said, the Napo flowed into 
a greater river. Here the nation they sought was 
to be found, and Orellana was bidden to get a sup- 
ply of provisions and bring them back to the half- 
starved company. Taking fifty of the adventurers 
in the vessel, he pushed off into the swift channel 
of the river and shot onward in a speedy voyage 
which quickly took him and his comrades out of 
sight. 

Days and weeks passed, and no sign of the re- 
turn of the voyagers appeared. In vain the wait- 
ing men strained their eyes down the stream and 
sent out detachments to look for the vessel farther 
down. Finally, deeming it useless to wait longer, 
they resumed their journey down the river, spend- 
ing two months in advancing five or six hundred 
miles — those of them who did not die by the way. 
At length they reached the point they sought, 
where the ISTapo plunged into a much larger stream, 
that mighty river since known as the Amazon, 
which rolls for thousands of miles eastward through 
the vast Brazilian forest. 

Here they looked in vain for the brigantine and 
the rich and populous country promised them. 
They were still in a dense forest region, as un- 
promising as that they had left. As for Orellana 



92 HISTORICAL TALES. 

and his companions, it was naturally supposed that 
they had perished by famine or by the hands of the 
ferocious natives. Eut they learned differently at 
length, when a half-starved and half-naked white 
man emerged from the forest, whom they recog- 
nized as Sanches de Yargas, one of Orellana' s com- 
panions. 

The tale he told them was the following : The 
brigantine had shot so swiftly down the Napo as to 
reach in three days the point it had taken them two 
months to attain. Here, instead of finding supplies 
with which to return, Orellana could obtain barely 
enough food for himself and his men. To attempt 
to ascend against the swift current of the river was 
impossible. To go back by land was a formidable 
task, and one that would add nothing to the com- 
fort of those left behind. In this dilemma Orellana 
came to the daring decision to go on down the Ama- 
zon, visiting the populous nations which he was told 
dwelt on its banks, descending to its mouth, and 
sailing back to Spain with the tidings and the glory 
of a famous adventure and noble discovery. 

He found his reckless companions quite ready to 
accept his perilous scheme, with little heed of the 
fate of the comrades left behind them in the wilder- 
ness. De Yargas was the only one who earnestly 
opposed the desertion as inhuman and dishonor- 
able, and Orellana punished him by abandoning 
him in the wilderness and sailing away without 
him. 

The story of Orellana' s adventure is not the least 



GONZALO PIZARRO AND THE LAND OF CINNAMON. 93 

interesting part of the expedition we have set out 
to describe; but, as it is a side issue, we must deal 
with it very briefly. Launched on the mighty and 
unknown river, in a rudely built barque, it is a 
marvel that the voyagers escaped shipwreck in the 
descent of that vast stream, the navigation being 
too difficult and perilous, as we are told by Con- 
damine, who descended it in 1743, to be undertaken 
without the aid of a skilful pilot. Yet the daring 
Spaniards accomplished it safely. Many times their 
vessel narrowly escaped being dashed to pieces on 
the rocks or in the rapids of the stream. Still 
greater was the danger of the voyagers from the 
warlike forest tribes, who followed them for miles 
in canoes and fiercely attacked them whenever they 
landed in search of food. 

At length the extraordinary voyage was safely 
completed, and the brigantine, built on the Napo, 
several thousand miles in the interior, emerged on 
the Atlantic. Here Orellana proceeded to the island 
of Cubagna, from which he made his way, with his 
companions, to Spain. He had a wonderful story 
to tell, of nations of Amazons dwelling on the banks 
of the great river, of an El Dorado said to exist in 
its vicinity, and other romances, gathered from the 
uncertain stories of the savages. 

He found no difficulty, in that age of marvels and 
credulity, in gaining belief, and was sent out at the 
head of five hundred followers to conquer and colo- 
nize the realms he had seen. But he died on the 
outward voyage, and Spain got no profit from his 



94 HISTORICAL TALES. 

discovery, the lands of the Amazon falling within 
the territory assigned by the Pope to Portugal. 

Orellana had accomplished one of the greatest 
feats in the annals of travel and discovery, though 
his glory was won at the cost of the crime of desert- 
ing his companions in the depths of the untrodden 
wilderness. It was with horror and indignation 
that the deserted soldiers listened to the story of 
Yargas, and found themselves deprived of their only 
apparent means of escape from that terrible situa- 
tion. An effort was made to continue their journey 
along the banks of the Amazon, but after some 
days of wearying toil, this was given up as a hope- 
less task, and despair settled down upon their 
souls. 

Gonzalo Pizarro now showed himself an able 
leader. He told his despairing followers that it was 
useless to advance farther, and that they could not 
stay where they were, their only hope lying in a 
return to Quito. This was more than a thousand 
miles away, and over a year had passed since they 
left it. To return was perilous, but in it lay their 
only hope. 

Gonzalo did all he could to reanimate their spirits, 
speaking of the constancy they had shown, and 
bidding them to show themselves worthy of the 
name of Castilians. Glory would be theirs when 
they should reach their native land. He would 
lead them back by another route, and somewhere 
on it they would surely reach that fruitful land of 
which so much had been told them. At any rate, 



GONZALO PIZARRO AND THE LAND OF CINNAMON. 95 

every step would take them nearer home, and noth- 
ing else was left them to do. 

The soldiers listened to him with renewed hope. 
He had proved himself so far a true companion, 
sharing all their perils and privations, taking his 
lot with the humblest among them, aiding the sick 
and cheering up the despondent. In this way he 
had won their fullest confidence and devotion, and 
in this trying moment he reaped the benefit of his 
unselfish conduct. 

The journey back was more direct and less diffi- 
cult than that they had already taken. Yet though 
this route proved an easier one, their distress was 
greater than ever, from their lack of food beyond 
such scanty fare as they could pick up in the forest 
or obtain by force or otherwise from the Indians. 
Such as sickened and fell by the way were obliged 
to be left behind, and many a poor wretch was 
deserted to die alone in the wilderness, if not de- 
voured by the wild beasts that roamed through it. 

The homeward march, like the outward one, took 
more than a year, and it was in June, 1542, that 
the survivors trod again the high plains of Quito. 
They were a very different looking party from the 
well-equipped and hope-inspired troop of cavaliers 
and men-at-arms who had left that upland city 
nearly two and a half years before. Their horses 
were gone, their bright arms were rusted and 
broken, their clothing was replaced by the skins of 
wild beasts, their hair hung long and matted down 
their shoulders, their faces were blackened by the 



96 HISTORICAL TALES. 

tropical sun, their bodies were wasted and scarred. 
A gallant troop they had set out; a body of meagre 
phantoms they returned. Of the four thousand 
Indians taken, less than half had survived. Of the 
Spaniards only eighty came back, and these so 
worn and broken that many of them never fully 
recovered from their sufferings. Thus in suffering 
and woe ended the famous expedition to the Land 
of Cinnamon. 



CORONADO AND THE SEVEN 
CITIES OF CIBOLA. 

The remarkable success of Cortez and Pizarro in 
Mexico and Peru went far to convince the Spaniards 
that in America they had found a veritable land of 
magic, filled with wonders and supremely rich in 
gold and gems. Ponce de Leon sought in Florida 
for the fabled Fountain of Youth. Hernando de 
Soto, one of the companions of Pizarro, attempted 
to find a second Peru in the north, and became the 
discoverer of the Mississippi. From Mexico other 
adventurers set out, with equal hopes, in search of 
empire and treasure. Some went south to the con- 
quest of Central America, others north to California 
and New Mexico. The latter region was the seat 
of the fancied Seven Cities of Cibola, the search for 
which it is here proposed to describe. 

In 1538 Francisco Yasquez de Coronado was ap- 
pointed governor of ISTew Galacia, as the country 
lying north of Mexico was named, and sent out a 
certain Fray Marcos, a monk who had been with 
Pizarro in Peru, on a journey of exploration to the 
north. With him were some Indian guides and a 
negro named Estevanico, or Stephen, who had been 
one of the survivors of the Narvaez expedition to 
Florida and had travelled for years among the 
Indians of the north. He was expected to be of 

7 97 



y» HISTORICAL TALES. 

great assistance. As the worthy friar went on he 
was told of rich regions beyond, where the people 
wore ornaments of gold, and at length he sent the 
negro in advance to investigate and report. Stephen 
was to send back by the Indians a cross, the size of 
which would indicate the importance of what he 
had learned. Within four days messengers returned 
with a great cross the height of a man, significant 
of great and important discoveries. 

One of the Indians told the friar that thirty days' 
journey from the point they had reached was a 
populous country called Cibola, in which were seven 
great cities under one lord, peopled by a civilized 
nation that dwelt in large houses well built of stone 
and lime, some of them several stories in height. 
The entrances to the principal houses were richly 
wrought with turquoise, which was there in great 
abundance. Farther on they had been told were 
other provinces, each of them much greater than 
that of the seven cities. 

Two days after Easter, 1539, Fray Marcos set out 
on the track of his pioneer, eager to reach the land 
of wonders and riches of which he had been told. 
Doubtless there rose in his mind dreams of a second 
Mexico or Peru. The land through which lay his 
route was strange and picturesque. Here were 
fertile valleys, watered by streams and walled in by 
mountains ; there were narrow canons through 
which ran rapid streams, with rock-walls hundreds 
of feet high and cut into strange forms of turrets 
and towers. 



CORONADO AND THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. 99 

As he went on he heard more of the seven cities 
and the distant kingdoms, and of the abundance of 
turquoises with which the natives adorned their 
persons and their doorways. But nothing was seen 
of Stephen, though shelter and provisions were 
found which he had left at points along the route. 
As for the dusky pioneer, Fray Marcos was never 
to set eyes on him again. 

At length the good monk reached a fertile region, 
irrigated like a garden, where the men wore three 
or four strings of turquoises around their necks; 
and the women wore them in their ears and noses. 
But Cibola lay still beyond, the tales of the natives 
magnifying its houses till some of them were ten 
stories in height. Ladders, they said, were used in 
place of stairways. Eeaching at length the Gila 
River, a stream flowing through deep and rugged 
valleys, he heard again of the negro, who was 
crossing the wilderness to the northeast, escorted 
like a prince by some three hundred natives. Fif- 
teen days journey still lay between Fray Marcos 
and Cibola, and he went on into the wilderness, es- 
corted, like his pioneer, by a large train of natives, 
who volunteered their services. 

For twelve days the journey continued through a 
rough mountain region, abundantly supplied with 
game, consisting of deer, rabbits, and partridges, 
which was brought in by the Indian hunters. But 
now there came back startling news, for one of the 
negro' s guides appeared, pallid with fright, telling 
how Stephen had reached Cibola, where he had 

LofC. 



100 HISTORICAL TALES. 

been seized, plundered, and imprisoned. Farther 
on two more Indians were met, covered with blood 
and wounds, who said that they had escaped from 
the slaughter of all their comrades by the warlike 
people of Cibola. 

The bold monk had now much trouble in getting 
his frightened followers to go on with him, but by 
means of abundant presents he induced two of the 
chiefs to proceed. He was determined to gain at 
least a sight of the land of wonders, and with the 
chiefs and his own followers he cautiously pro- 
ceeded. At length, from a hill summit, he looked 
down on a broad plain on which he saw the first of 
the famous seven cities. To his excited fancy it 
was greater than the city of Mexico, the houses of 
stone in many stories and with flat roofs. This was 
all he could tell from his distant view,* in which the 
mountain hazes seem to have greatly magnified his 
power of vision. 

That was the end of Fray Marcos' s journey. He 
did not dare to approach nearer to that terrible 
people, and, as he quaintly says, ' ' returned with 
more fear than victuals;" overtaking his escort, 
which, moved by still greater fear, had not waited 
for him. Back to Coronado he went with his story, 
a disappointing one, since he had seen nothing of 
either gold, silver, or precious stones, the nearest 
approach to treasure being the greenish turquoise. 

The story of the negro pioneer, as afterwards 
learned, was one that might have fitted the Orient. 
He advanced with savage magnificence, bells and 



CORONADO AND THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. 101 

feathers adorning his sable arms and legs, while he 
carried a gourd decorated with bells and with white 
and red feathers. This he knew to be a symbol of 
authority among the Indians. Two Spanish grey- 
hounds followed him, and a number of handsome 
Indian women, whom he had taken up on the way, 
attended him. He was followed with a large escort 
of Indians, carrying his provisions and other effects, 
among them gifts received, or plunder taken, from 
the natives. 

When near Cibola, he, in disobedience of the 
orders given him, sent messengers to the city bear- 
ing his gourd, and saying that he came to treat for 
peace and to cure the sick. The chief to whom the 
gourd was presented, on observing the bells, cast it 
angrily to the ground, exclaiming, — 

"I know not those people; their bells are not of 
our fashion; tell them to return at once, or not a 
man of them will be left alive. ' ' 

In despite of this hostile message, the vain- 
glorious negro went on. He and his company were 
not permitted to enter the city, but were given a 
house outside of it, and here they were stripped of 
all their possessions and refused food and drink. 
The next morning they left the house, where they 
were quickly surrounded and attacked by a great 
number of the townspeople, all of them being killed 
except the two Indians who had brought the news 
to Fray Marcos. 

Why they were treated in this manner is not 
known. They seem to have been looked on as spies 



102 HISTORICAL TALES. 

or enemies. But it is interesting that the legend of 
the killing of a Black Mexican still lingers in a 
pueblo of the Zulu Indians, though three centuries 
and a half have since then elapsed. 

The story of the discovery of the Seven Cities, as 
told by the worthy Fray Marcos, when repeated in 
the city of Mexico gave rise to high hopes of a new 
El Dorado ; and numbers were ready to join in an 
expedition to explore and conquer Cibola. The city 
was then well filled with adventurers eager for fame 
and fortune, many of them men of good family, 
cavaliers of rank "floating about like corks on 
water, ' ' and soldiers ready to enlist in any promis- 
ing service. It is no wonder that in a few weeks a 
company of over three hundred were enlisted, a 
large proportion of them mounted. The Indians of 
the expedition numbered eight hundred, and some 
small field-pieces were taken along, while sheep and 
cows were to be driven to supply the army with 
fresh meat. 

Francisco de Coronado was given the command, 
and so distinguished was the cavalcade that the 
viceroy would have appointed each of the gentle- 
men a captain but for fear of making the command 
top-heavy with officers. It was early in 1540 that 
the gallant expedition set out, some of the horsemen 
arrayed in brilliant coats of mail and armed with 
swords and lances, others wearing helmets of iron 
or tough bullhide, while the footmen carried cross- 
bows and muskets, and the Indians were armed 
with bows and clubs. Splendid they were — but woe- 



CORONADO AND THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. 103 

befallen were they to be on their return, such of 
them as came back. An accessory party was sent 
by sea, along the Pacific coast, under Hernando de 
Alarcon, to aid, as far as it could, in the success of 
the army. But in spite of all Alarcon' s efforts, he 
failed to get in communication with Coronado and 
his men. 

On the 7th of July, after following the monk's 
route through the mountain wilderness, the expedi- 
tion came within two days' march of the first city 
of Cibola. It was evident from the signal-fires on 
the hills and other signs of hostility that the Span- 
iards would have to fight ; but for this the cavaliers 
of that day seem to have been always ready, and 
the next day Coronado moved forward towards the 
desired goal. 

At length the gallant little army was before 
Hawaikuh, the city on which Fray Marcos had 
gazed with such magnifying eyes, but which now 
was seen to be a village of some two hundred houses. 
It lay about fifteen miles southwest of the present 
Zuni. The natives were ready for war. All the 
old men, with the women and children, had been 
sent away, and the Spaniards were received with 
volleys of arrows. 

The houses were built in retreating terraces, each 
story being smaller than that below it, and from 
these points of vantage the arrows of the natives 
came in showers. Evidently the place was only to 
be taken by assault, and the infantry was posted so 
as to fire on the warriors, while a number of dis- 



104 HISTORICAL TALES. 

mounted horsemen sought to scale the walls by a 
ladder which they had found. This proved no easy 
task. Coronado' s glittering armor especially made 
him a shining mark, and he was so tormented with 
arrows and battered with stones as he sought to 
ascend that he was wounded and had to be carried 
from the field. Others were injured and three horses 
were killed, but in less than an hour the place was 
carried, the warriors retreating in dismay before 
the impetuous assault. 

Glad enough were the soldiers to occupy the de- 
serted houses. Their food had given out and they 
were half starved, but in the store-rooms they found 
' ' that of which there was greater need than of gold 
or silver, which was much corn and beans and 
chickens, better than those of New Spain, and 
salt, the best and whitest I have seen in all my 
life." The chickens seem to have been wild tur- 
keys, kept by the natives for their plumage. But 
of the much-desired gold and silver there was not 
a trace. 

The story of all the adventures of the Spaniards 
in this country is too extended and not of enough 
interest to be given here. It must suffice to say 
that before their eyes the Seven Cities of Cibola faded 
into phantoms, or rather contracted into villages of 
terraced houses like that they had captured. Food 
was to be had, but none of the hoped-for spoil, 
even the turquoises of which so much had been 
told proving to be of little value. Expeditions 
were sent out in different directions, some of them 



C0R0NAD0 AND THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. 105 

discovering lofty, tower-like hills, with villages on 
their almost inaccessible summits, the only ap- 
proach being by narrow steps cut in the rock. 
Others came upon deep canons, one of them dis- 
covering the wonderful Grand Canon of the Colo- 
rado River. In the country of Tiguex were twelve 
villages built of adobe, some on the plain and some 
on the lofty heights. The people here received the 
Spaniards peaceably and with much show of welcome. 

In Tiguex was found an Indian slave, called by 
the Spaniards El Turco, from his resemblance to 
the Turks, who said he had come from a rich coun- 
try in the east, where were numbers of great ani- 
mals with shaggy manes, — evidently the buffalo or 
bison, now first heard of. Some time later, being 
brought into the presence of Coronado, El Turco 
had a more wonderful story to tell, to the effect 
that ' ' In his land there was a river in the level 
country which was two leagues wide, in which were 
fishes as big as horses, and large numbers of very 
big canoes with more than twenty rowers on a side, 
and carrying sails; and their lords sat on the poop 
under awnings, and on the prow they had a great 
golden eagle. He said also that the lord of that 
country took his afternoon nap under a great tree 
on which were hung a large number of little gold 
bells, which put him to sleep as they swung in the 
air. He said also that every one had their ordinary 
dishes made of wrought plate, and the jugs, plates, 
and bowls were of gold." 

No doubt it was the love of the strangers for the 



106 HISTORICAL TALES. 

yellow metal that inspired El Turco to these allur- 
ing stories, in the hope of getting rid of the 
unwelcome visitors. At any rate, this was the 
effect it had. After wintering in the villages of the 
Tiguas, which the Spaniards had assailed and taken, 
they set out in the following April in search of 
Quivira, the land of gold, which El Turco had 
painted in such enticing colors. Against the advice 
of El Turco, they loaded the horses with provisions, 
the imaginative Indian saying that this was useless, 
as the laden animals could not bring back the gold 
and silver. Scarcely to his liking, the romancing 
Indian was taken with them as a guide. 

On for many leagues they went until the Pecos 
Eiver was crossed and the great northern plains 
were reached, they being now in a flat and treeless 
country, covered with high grasses and peopled by 
herds of the great maned animals which El Turco 
had described. These strange creatures were seen 
in extraordinary numbers, so abundant that one 
day, when a herd was put to flight, they fell in 
such a multitude into a ravine as nearly to fill it up, 
so that the remainder of the herd crossed on the 
dead bodies. 

Yarious tribes of Indians were met, the story they 
told not at all agreeing with that of El Turco, who 
accordingly was now put in chains. Coronado, not 
wishing to subject all his companions to suffering, 
but eager still to reach the fabled Quivira, at length 
sent all his followers back except thirty horsemen 
and six foot-soldiers, with whom he continued his 



CORONADO AND THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA. 107 

journey to the north, the bisons supplying them 
with abundance of food. 

For six weeks they marched onward, crossing at 
the end of thirty days a wide stream, which is 
thought to have been the Arkansas River, and at 
last reached Quivira, which seems to have lain in 
the present State of Kansas. A pleasing land it 
was of hills and dales and fertile meadows, but in 
place of El Turco' s many-storied stone houses, only 
rude wigwams were to be seen, and the civilized 
people proved to be naked savages. The only 
yellow metal seen was a copper plate worn by one 
of the chiefs and some bells of the same substance. 
The utmost Coronado could do was to set up a cross 
and claim this wide region in the name of his 
master; and his chief satisfaction was in strangling 
El Turco for his many embellished lies. 

We shall not describe the return journey, though 
it was not lacking in interesting incidents. Finally, 
having lost many of their horses, being harassed by 
the Indians, and suffering from want of provisions, 
the way-worn army reached known soil in the 
valley of Culiacan. Here all discipline was at an 
end, and the disorganized army straggled for leagues 
down the valley, all Coronado' s entreaties failing to 
restore any order to the ranks. 

At length the sorely disappointed commander 
presented himself before the viceroy Mendoza, with 
scarcely a hundred ragged followers who alone re- 
mained with him of the splendid cavalcade with 
which he had set out. 



108 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Thus ends the story of the last of the conquista- 
dores, who had found only villages of barbarians 
and tribes of half-naked savages, and returned 
empty-handed from his long chase after the Will-o' 
the-wisp of Quivira and its fleeting treasures. Little 
did he dream that Quivira would yet become the 
central region of one of the greatest civilized nations 
of the world, and rich in productions beyond his 
most avaricious vision. 



THE FAITHFUL MIRANDA AND 
THE LOVERS OF ARGENTINA. 

The early history of America has few romantic 
tales of love and devotion, but there is one woven 
in with the history of the settlement of Buenos 
Ayres, the modern Argentina, which is told by all 
the historians of the time, and which exists as the 
one striking love romance of the Spanish conquest. 
It has been doubted, it is true, but it will not to do 
to dismiss all the chivalrous tales of the past on the 
plea that historical critics have questioned them. 

It may not be generally known to our readers 
that the man who explored and took possession of 
the great rivers of Buenos Ayres for Spain was 
Sebastian Cabot, he who, many years before, had 
with his father discovered North America in the 
service of England. It was in the year 1526 that 
he sailed up the noble river which he named the 
Bio de la Plata, a name suggested by the bars of 
silver which he obtained from the Indians on its 
banks. Sailing some hundred miles up the Para- 
guay Biver, he built at the mouth of the river Zar- 
caranna a stronghold which he named the Fort of 
the Holy Ghost. Some three years later Cabot set 
sail for Spain, leaving Nuno de Lara as commander 
of this fort, with a garrison of one hundred and 
twenty men. 

109 



110 HISTORICAL TALES. 

These historical details are important, as a neces- 
sary setting for the love -romance which followed 
the founding of this fort. Lara, being left with his 
handful of men as the only whites in a vast terri- 
tory peopled with Indians, felt strongly that in his 
situation prudence was the better part of valor, and 
strove to cultivate friendly relations with the near- 
est and most powerful of these tribes, the Timbuez. 
His success in this brought about, in an unexpected 
manner, his death and the loss of the fort, with 
other evils in their train. 

The tragedy came on in this way: Sebastian Hur- 
tado, one of Lara's principal officers, had brought 
with him his wife, Lucia Miranda, a Spanish lady 
of much beauty and purity of soul. During the 
frequent visits which Mangora, the cacique pf the 
Timbuez, paid to the fort, he saw this lady and 
became enamoured of her charms, so deeply that 
he could not conceal the evidence of his love. 

Miranda was not long in observing the ardent 
looks of the Indian chief and in understanding their 
significance, and the discovery filled her with dread 
and alarm. Knowing how important it was for the 
commandant to keep on good terms with this power- 
ful chief, and fearing that she might be sacrificed to 
this policy, she did her utmost to keep out of his 
sight, and also to guard against any surprise or 
violence, not knowing to what extremes the passion 
of love might lead an Indian. 

Mangora, on his part, laid covert plans to get the 
fair lady out of the fort, and with this in view 



THE LOVERS OF ARGENTINA. Ill 

pressed Hurtado to pay him a visit and bring his 
wife with him. This the Spaniard was loath to do, 
for Miranda had told him of her fears, and he sus- 
pected the Indian' s design. With a policy demanded 
by the situation, he declined the invitations of the 
chief, on the plea that a Castilian soldier could not 
leave his post of duty without permission from his 
commander, and that honor forbade him to ask that 
permission except to fight his enemies. 

The wily chief was not duped by this reply. He 
saw that Hurtado suspected his purpose, and the 
removal of the husband seemed to him a necessary 
step for its accomplishment. While seeking to 
devise a plan for this, he learned, to his great satis- 
faction, that Hurtado and another officer, with fifty 
soldiers, had left the fort on an expedition to collect 
provisions, of which a supply was needed. 

Here was the opportunity which the treacherous 
chief awaited. It not only removed the husband, 
but weakened the garrison, the protectors of the 
wife in his absence. Late one day the chief placed 
four thousand armed men in ambush in a marsh 
near the fort, and then set out for it with thirty 
others, laden with provisions. Reaching the gates, 
he sent word to Lara that he had heard of his want 
of food, and had brought enough to serve him until 
the return of Hurtado and his men. This show of 
friendship greatly pleased Lara. He met the chief 
with warm demonstrations of gratitude, and insisted 
on entertaining him and his followers. 

So far the scheme of the treacherous Indian had 



112 HISTORICAL TALES. 

been successful. The men in the marsh had their 
instructions and patiently awaited the fixed signals, 
while the feast in the fort went on till the night 
was well advanced. When it broke up the Span- 
iards were given time to retire ; then the food- 
bearing Indians set fire to the magazines, and the 
ambushed savages, responding to the signal, broke 
into the fort and ruthlessly cut down all the Span- 
iards they met. Those who had gone to bed were 
killed in their sleep or slain as they sprang up in 
alarm. The governor was severely wounded, but 
had strength enough to revenge himself on the 
faithless Mangora, whom he rushed upon and ran 
through the body with his sword. In a moment 
more he was himself slain. 

At the close of the attack, of all the Spaniards in 
the fort only the women and children remained 
alive — spared, no doubt, by order of the chief. 
These consisted of the hapless Miranda, the innocent 
cause of this bloody catastrophe, four other women, 
and as many children. The weeping captives were 
bound and brought before Siripa, the brother of 
Mangora, and his successor as cacique of the tribe. 

No sooner had the new chief gazed on the woman 
whom his brother had loved, her beauty heightened 
in his eyes by her grief and woe, than a like passion 
was born in his savage soul, and he at once ordered 
his men to remove her bonds. He then told her 
that she must not consider herself a captive, and 
solicited her favor with the gentleness and address 
that love can implant in the breast of the savage as 



THE LOVERS OF ARGENTINA. 113 

well as of the son of civilization. Her husband, he 
told her, was a forlorn fugitive in the forests of a 
hostile country; he was the chief of a powerful 
nation and could surround her with luxuries and 
wealth. Could she hesitate to accept his love in 
preference to that of a man who was lost to her. 

These persuasions excited only horror and anguish 
in the soul of the faithful wife. Her love for her 
husband was proof against all that Siripa could say, 
and also against the fear of slavery or death, which 
might follow her rejection of his suit. In fact, 
death seemed to her a smaller evil than life as the 
wife of this savage suitor, and she rejected his offers 
with scorn and with a bitter contempt which she 
hoped would excite his rage and induce him to put 
her to instant death. 

Her flashing eyes and excited words, however, 
had a very different effect from that she intended. 
They served only to heighten her charms in the eyes 
of the cacique, and he became more earnest than ever 
in his persuasions. Taking her to his village, he 
treated her with every mark of kindness and gentle- 
ness, and showed her the utmost respect and civility, 
doubtless hoping in this way to win her esteem and 
raise a feeling in her breast corresponding to his own. 

Meanwhile, Hurtado and his men returned with 
the provisions they had collected, and viewed with 
consternation the ruins of the fort which they had 
so lately left. Their position was a desperate one, 
alone and undefended as they were, in the midst of 
treacherous tribes ; but the fears which troubled the 

8 



114 HISTORICAL TALES. 

minds of his comrades did not affect that of Hurtado. 
He learned that his wife was a captive in the hands 
of the cacique of Timbuez, and love and indignation 
in his soul suppressed all other feelings. "With a 
temerity that seemed the height of imprudence, he 
sought alone the village of the chief and demanded 
the release of his wife. 

Siripa heard his request with anger at his pre- 
sumption and savage joy at having at his mercy the 
man who stood between him and the object of his 
affections. Determined to remove this obstacle to 
his suit, he at once ordered him to be seized, bound 
to a tree, and pierced with arrows. 

This was not unseen by Miranda, and, filled with 
anguish, she rushed out, cast herself at the Indian' s 
feet and pitifully pleaded with him for her husband' s 
life. The force of beauty in grief prevailed. Hur- 
tado was unbound, but he was still kept in captivity. 

Lover as Siripa was, he had all the undisciplined 
passions of a savage, and the fate of husband and 
wife alike was at constant risk in his hands. Now, 
tormented with the fury of jealousy, he seemed 
bent on sacrificing the husband to his rage. Again, 
the desire of winning the esteem- of Miranda soft- 
ened his soul, and he permitted the husband and 
wife to meet. 

As the days of captivity passed the strictness of 
their detention was relaxed and they were permitted 
greater freedom of action. As a result they met each 
other more frequently and under less restraint. 
But this growing leniency in the cacique had its 



THE LOVERS OF ARGENTINA. ' 115 

limits: they might converse, but they were warned 
against indulging in any of the fond caresses of love. 
Jealousy still burned in his soul, and if Miranda 
would not become his, he was resolved that no one 
else should enjoy the evidence of her affection. 

The situation was a painful one. Husband and 
wife, as Hurtado and Miranda were, they continued 
lovers as well, and it was not easy to repress the 
feelings that moved them. Prudence bade them 
avoid any show of love, and they resolved to obey 
its dictates; but prudence is weak where love com- 
mands, and in one fatal moment Siripa surprised 
them clasped in each other' s arms and indulging in 
the ardent kisses of love. 

Filled with wild jealousy at the sight and carried 
away by ungovernable fury at their contempt of his 
authority and their daring disregard of his feelings, 
he ordered them both to instant execution. Hur- 
tado' s old sentence was renewed : he was bound to 
a tree and his body pierced with arrows. As for 
Miranda, she was sentenced by the jealous and 
furious savage to a more painful death, that of the 
names. Yet painful as it was, the loyal wife doubt- 
less preferred it to yielding to the passion of the 
chief, and as a quick means of rejoining in soul life 
her lover and husband. 

Thus ends the most romantic and tragical story 
of love and faith that the early annals of America 
have to show, and the fate of the faithful Miranda 
has become a classic in the love-lore of the America 
of the south. 



LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF 
THE ARAUCANIANS. 

The river Biobio, in Southern Chili, was for cen- 
turies the boundary between liberty and oppression 
in South America. South of it lay the land of the 
Araucanians, that brave and warlike people who 
preserved their independence against the whites, 
the only Indian nation in America of which this 
can be said. Yalorous and daring as were the 
American Indians, their arms and their arts were 
those of the savage, and the great multitude of 
them were unable to stand before the weapons and 
the discipline of their white invaders. But such was 
not the case with the valiant Araucanians. From 
the period of Almagro, the companion of Pizarro 
and the first invader of Chili, down to our own 
days these bold Americans fought for and retained 
their independence, holding the Biobio as their 
national frontier, and driving army after army 
from their soil. Not until 1882 did they consent 
to become citizens of Chili, and then of their own 
free will, and they still retain their native habits 
and their pride in their pure blood. 

The most heroic and intrepid of the Indian races, 

they defied the armies of the Incas long before the 

Spaniards came, and the armies of the Spaniards 

for centuries afterwards, and though they have now 

116 



LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS. 117 

consented to become a part of the Chilian nation, 
this has not been through conquest, and they are 
as independent in spirit to-day as in the warlike 
years of the past. Their hardy and daring charac- 
ter infects the whole of Chili, and has given that 
little republic, drawn out like a long string between 
the Andes and the sea, the reputation of being one 
of the most warlike and unyielding of countries, 
while to its people have been applied the suggestive 
title of "the Yankees of the South." 

It would need a volume to tell the deeds of the 
heroes who arose in succession to defend the land 
of Araucania from the arms of those who so easily 
overturned the mighty empire of Peru. We shall, 
therefore, confine ourselves to the exploits of one 
of the earliest of these, a youthful warrior with a 
genius for war that might have raised him to the 
rank of a great commander had not death early 
cut short his career. The second Spaniard who 
attempted the conquest of this valiant people was 
Pedro de Yaldivia, the quartermaster of Pizarro, an 
able soldier, but one of those who fancied that a 
handful of Spanish cavaliers were a match for the 
strongest of the Indian tribes. He little knew the 
spirit of the race with which he would have to 
deal. 

Southward from Peru marched the bold Yaldivia 
with two hundred Spaniards at his back. With 
them as aids to conquest was brought a considerable 
force of Peruvians; also priests and women, for he 
proposed to settle and hold the land as his own 



118 HISTORICAL TALES. 

after he had conquered it. Six hundred miles south- 
ward he went, fighting the hostile natives at every 
step, and on the 14th of February, 1541, stopped 
and laid the foundations of a town which he named 
St. Jago. This still stands as the modern Santiago, 
a city of three hundred thousand souls. 

We do not propose to tell the story of Yaldivia' s 
wars with the many tribes of Chili. He was in that 
land nine years before his conquests brought him to 
the Biobio and the land of the Araucanians, with 
whom alone we are concerned. On the coast near 
the mouth of this river he founded a new town, 
which he named Concepcion, and made this the 
basis of an invasion of the land of the Araucanians, 
whom he proposed to subdue. 

As it happened, the Araucanian leader at this 
time was a man with the body of a giant and the 
soul of a dwarf. He timidly kept out of the way of 
the Spaniards until they had overrun most of the 
country, built towns and forts, and had reason to 
believe that the whole of Chili was theirs. Yal- 
divia went on founding cities until he had seven in 
all, and gave himself the proud title of the Marquis 
of Arauco, fancying that he was lord and master of 
the Araucanians. He was too hasty; Arauco was 
not yet his. 

A new state of affairs began when the Arauca- 
nians, disgusted with the timid policy of their 
leader, chose a bolder man, named Caupolican, as 
their toqui, or head chief. A daring and able man, 
the new toqui soon taught the Spaniards a lesson. 



LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS. 119 

He began with an attack on their forts. At one of 
these, named Arauco, the invaders had eighty 
Indians employed in bringing them forage for their 
horses. The wily Canpolican replaced these labor- 
ers by eighty of his own warriors, who hid their 
arms in the bundles of hay they carried. On reach- 
ing the fort they were to attack the guards and 
hold the gates till their ambushed comrades could 
come to their aid. 

This device failed, the garrison attacking and 
driving back the forage -bearers before Caupolican 
could reach the place. Foiled in this, he made a 
fierce assault upon the fort, but the fire of eighty 
cannons proved too much for Indian means of 
defence, and the assailants were forced to draw back 
and convert their assault into a siege. This did not 
continue long before the Spaniards found themselves 
in peril of starvation. Yainly they sallied out on 
their assailants, who were not to be driven off; and 
finally, hopeless of holding the fort, the beleaguered 
garrison cut its way by a sudden night attack 
through the besieging lines and retired to the 
neighboring fort of Puren. A similar result took 
place at another fort called Tucapel, its garrison 
also seeking a refuge at Puren. 

When news of these events reached Yaldivia, he 
saw that his conquests were in peril, and at once 
set out for the seat of war with all his forces, 
amounting to about two hundred Spaniards and four 
or five thousand Indians. A small party of cavalry 
were despatched in advance to reconnoitre the 



120 HISTORICAL TALES. 

enemy, but they were all killed by the Araucanians 
and their heads were hung on roadside trees as a 
warning to their approaching comrades. This grue- 
some spectacle had much of the effect intended. On 
seeing it many of the Spaniards were dismayed and 
clamored to return. Eut Yaldivia insisted on ad- 
vancing, and on the 3d of December, 1553, the two 
armies came in sight of each other at Tucapel. 

Yaldivia soon found that he had no ordinary 
Indians to deal with. These were not of the kind 
that could be dispersed by a squadron of cavalry. 
A fierce charge was made on his left wing, which 
was cut to pieces by the daring warriors of Caupoli- 
can. The right wing was also vigorously attacked. 
Eut the artillery and musketry of the Spaniards 
were mowing down the ranks of the Araucanians, 
whose rude war-clubs and spears were ill-fitted to 
cope with those death-dealing weapons. Driven 
back, and hundreds of them falling, they returned 
with heroic courage three times to the assault. But 
at length the slaughter became too great to bear and 
the warriors were ready to flee in dismay. 

At this critical moment the first great hero of the 
Araucanians appeared. He was a boy of only six- 
teen years of age, a mere lad, who some time before 
had been captured by Yaldivia, baptized, and made 
his page. But young as he was, he loved his 
country ardently and hated the invaders with a 
bitter hate, and it was this youthful hero who saved 
the day for his countrymen and snatched victory 
out of defeat. 



LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS. 121 

Leaving the Spanish ranks at the moment the 
Araucanians were shrinking in dismay, he rushed 
into their ranks, called loudly on them to turn, 
accused them of cowardice, and bade them to face 
their foes like men. Seizing a lance, he charged 
alone on the Spaniards, calling on his countrymen to 
follow him. Inspired by his example and his cries, 
the Araucanians charged with such fury that the 
ranks of the Spaniards and their allies were broken, 
and they were cut down until the whole force was 
annihilated. It is said that of the entire expedition 
only two Indians escaped. 

Yaldivia, who had retired with his chaplain to 
pray, on seeing the fortune of war turning against 
him, was seized by a party of the victors and 
brought before Caupolican. The dismayed captive 
begged the chief for his life, promising to leave 
Chili with all his Spaniards. Seeing Lantaro, his 
late page, he asked him to intercede with the chief, 
and this the generous boy did. But the Araucani- 
ans had little faith in Spanish promises, and an old 
warrior who stood near ended the matter by raising 
his war-club and dashing out the captive' s brains. 
Thus tragically ended the career of one of the least 
cruel of the Spanish conquerors. He paid the pen- 
alty of his disdain of Indian courage. 

Lantaro, the boy hero, had the blood of chiefs in 
his veins, and was endowed by nature with beauty 
of person, nobleness of character, and intrepidity of 
soul. His people honored him highly in the festival 
with which they celebrated their victory, and Cau- 



122 HISTORICAL TALES. 

polican appointed him his special lieutenant, raising 
him to a rank in the army nearly equal to his own. 

There was fighting still to be done. The leader 
of the Spaniards was dead, but he had left many 
behind him, and there were still strongholds in the 
Indian country held by Spanish arms. On hearing 
of the terrible disaster to their cause, the Spaniards 
hastily evacuated their forts beyond the Biobio and 
retired to the towns of Imperial and Yaldivia. 
Here they were besieged by Caupolican, while Lan- 
taro was given the difficult task of defending the 
border-land about the frontier stream. The youth- 
ful general at once fortified himself on the steep 
mount of Mariguenu, a fort made very strong by 
nature. 

Meanwhile, the two Indians who had escaped 
from Tucapel brought the news of the disaster to 
Concepcion, filling the minds of the people with 
terror. The tidings of an attack on a party of 
fourteen horsemen, of whom seven were slain, added 
to the dismay. The fact that they were now dealing 
with a foe to whom artillery and cavalry had lost 
their terrors was not reassuring to the invaders of 
the land. Evidently their position was hazardous; 
they must fight to win or retreat. 

Yillagrau, who was chosen to succeed Yaldivia, 
decided to fight. With a small army of Spaniards 
and a strong body of Indians he crossed the Biobio 
and marched upon Lantaro and his men, ascending 
Mount Mariguenu to attack the stronghold on its 
top. 



LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS. 123 

Boy as Lantaro was, he showed the skill of an 
old soldier in dealing with his well-armed foe. 
While the Spaniards were toiling up a narrow pass 
of the mountain a strong force of Araucanians fell 
upon them, and for three hours gave them as sharp 
a fight as they had yet encountered. Then the 
Indians withdrew to the strong palisade, behind 
which Lantaro awaited the foe. 

Up the side of the steep mountain rode a party 
of Spanish horsemen, with the purpose of forcing a 
passage, but near the summit they were met with 
such a storm of arrows and other missiles that it 
became necessary to support them with infantry 
and artillery. Lantaro, vigilant in the defence, 
endeavored to surround the Spaniards with a body 
of his warriors, but the success of this stratagem 
was prevented by the advance of Yillagrau to their 
support. The battle now grew hot, the artillery in 
particular sweeping down the ranks of the Indians. 

At this critical juncture Lantaro showed that he 
was a born captain. Calling to him one of his 
officers, named Leucoton, he said, "You see those 
thunder-tubes. It is from them our trouble comes. 
There is your work. Do not dare show your face 
to me until you have made them your own. ' ' 

Leucoton at once rushed forward with his com- 
pany and fell in fury upon the battery, driving back 
the gunners and capturing their cannon. This suc- 
cessful charge was followed by Lantaro with a fierce 
attack on the Spanish front, which broke their 
ranks, throwing them into confusion and putting 



124 HISTORICAL TALES. 

them to flight. The defeat was ruinous, three 
thousand of the Spaniards and their allies being 
slain, while Yillagrau was saved with difficulty and 
at the risk of their lives by three of his men, who 
picked him up where he lay wounded and carried 
him off on his horse. 

In their flight the Spaniards had to traverse again 
the defile by which they had ascended. Lantaro 
had sent men to obstruct it by felled trees, and the 
few remaining Spaniards had a severe fight before 
they could escape. The Araucanians pursued them 
to the Biobio, fatigue preventing their following 
beyond that stream. The fugitives continued their 
flight until Concepcion was reached, and here the 
old men and women were speedily sent north in 
ships, while the other inhabitants fled from the 
city in a panic, and started for Santiago by land. 
All their property was left, and the victors found a 
rich prize when they entered the city. Lantaro, 
after destroying the place, returned home, to be 
greeted with the acclamations of his people. 

We must deal more rapidly with the remaining 
events of the boy hero' s career. Some time after this 
defeat the Spaniards attempted to rebuild Concep- 
cion, but while thus employed they were attacked 
and defeated by Lantaro, who pursued them through 
the open gates of their fortress and took possession 
of the stronghold, the people again fleeing to the 
woods and the ships in the harbor. Once more 
burning the city, Lantaro withdrew in triumph. 

The "Chilian Hannibal," as Lantaro has been 



LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS. 125 

with much justice called, now advanced against 
Santiago with six hundred picked men, as an aid 
to Caupolican in his siege of Imperial and Yaldivia. 
Eeaching the country of the Indian allies of the 
Spanish, the youthful general laid it waste. He 
then fortified himself on the banks of the Eio 
Claro and sent out spies into the country of the 
enemy. At the same time a body of Spanish 
horsemen were sent from the city to reconnoitre 
the position of their enemies, but they were met 
and driven back in dismay, being severely handled 
by the Araucanians. The news of their repulse 
filled the people of Santiago with consternation. 

Yillagrau being ill, he despatched his son Pedro 
against Lantaro, and ordered the roads leading to 
the city to be fortified. Young Pedro proved no 
match for his still younger but much shrewder op- 
ponent. "When the Spaniards attacked him, Lan- 
taro withdrew as if in a panic, the Spaniards fol- 
lowing tumultuously into the fortifications. Once 
inside, the Indians turned on them and cut them 
down so furiously that none but the horsemen 
escaped. 

Three times Pedro attacked Lantaro, but each 
time was repulsed. The young Spanish leader then 
withdrew into a meadow, while Lantaro encamped 
on a neighboring hill, with the design in mind of 
turning the waters of a mountain stream on Pedro' s 
camp. Fortunately for the latter, a spy informed 
him of the purpose to drown him out, and he 
hastily retired to Santiago. 



126 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Yillagrau had now got well again, and relieved his 
son of the task which had proved too much for him. 
At the head of a strong force, he took a secret route 
by the sea-shore, with the purpose of surprising the 
Araucanian camp. At daybreak the cries of his 
sentinels aroused Lantaro to the impending danger, 
and he sprang up and hurried to the side of his 
works to observe the coming enemy. He had 
hardly reached there when an arrow from the bow 
of one of the Spanish allies pierced him with a 
mortal wound, and the gallant boy leader fell dead 
in the arms of his followers. 

A fierce combat followed, the works being stormed 
and the fight not ending till none of the Arau- 
canians remained alive. The Spaniards then with- 
drew to Santiago, where for three days they cele- 
brated the death of their foe ; while his countrymen, 
dismayed by his fall, at once abandoned the siege 
of the invested cities and returned home. 

A remarkable career was that of this young cap- 
tain, begun at sixteen and ending at nineteen. 
History presents no rival to his precocious military 
genius, though in the centuries of war for inde- 
pendence in his country many older heroes of equal 
fame and daring arose for the defence of their native 
land against the Spanish foe. 



DRAKE, THE SEA-KING, AND THE 
SPANISH TREASURE-SHIPS. 

At the end of October, 1578, Sir Francis Drake, 
the Sea-King of Devon, as he was called, and the 
most daring and persistent of the enemies of the 
Spanish settlements in America, sailed from Cape 
Horn, at the southern extremity of the continent, 
and steered northward into the great Pacific, with 
the golden realm of Peru for his goal. A year 
before he had left the harbor of Plymouth, Eng- 
land, with a fleet of five well-armed ships. But 
these had been lost or left behind until only the 
' c Golden Hind, ' ' a ship of one hundred tons bur- 
den, was left, the flag-ship of the little squadron. 
Of the one hundred and sixty men with whom 
he started only about sixty remained. 

The bold Drake had previously made himself 
terrible to the Spaniards of Mexico and the West 
Indies, and had won treasure within sight of the 
walls of Panama. Now for the first time the foot 
of a white man trod the barren rocks of Cape 
Horn and the keel of an English ship cut the Pa- 
cific waves. Here were treasure-laden Spanish gal- 
leons to take and rich Spanish cities to raid, and 
the hearts of the adventurers were full of hope 
of a golden harvest as they sailed north into that 
unknown sea. 

127 



128 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Onward they sailed, nearing the scene of the 
famous adventures of Pizarro, and about the 1st of 
December entered a harbor on the coast of Chili. 
Before them, at no great distance, lay sloping hills 
on which sheep and cattle were grazing and corn 
and potatoes growing. They landed to meet the 
natives, who came to the shore and seemed delighted 
with the presents which were given them. But 
soon afterwards Drake and a boatload of his men, 
who had gone on shore to procure fresh water, 
were fiercely attacked by ambushed Indians, and 
every man on board was wounded before they could 
pull away. Even some of their oars were snatched 
from them by the Indians, and Drake was wounded 
by an arrow in the cheek and struck by a stone 
on the side of his face. 

Furious at this unprovoked assault, the crew 
wished to attack the hostile natives, but Drake 
refused to do so. 

' ' No doubt the poor fellows take us for Span- 
iards, " he said; "and we cannot blame them for 
attacking any man from Spain. ' ' 

Some days later a native fisherman was captured 
and brought on board the ship. He was in a terri- 
ble fright, but was reassured when he learned that 
his captors were not Spaniards, but belonged to a 
nation whose people did not love Spain. He was 
highly pleased with a chopping-knife and a piece of 
linen cloth that were given him, and was sent 
ashore, promising to induce his people to sell some 
provisions to the ship' s crew. He kept his word, 



>Sl.k m 




DRAKE AND THE SPANISH TREASURE-SHIPS. 129 

and a good supply of fowls and eggs and a fat hog 
were obtained. 

With the boat came off an Indian chief, glad to 
see any white men who hated the Spaniards as 
deeply as he did himself. He was well received 
and served to the best the ship could afford. Then 
he said to his entertainer in Spanish, a language he 
spoke fairly well, — 

• ' If you are at war with the Spaniards, I will be 
glad to go with you, and think I can be of much 
use to you. The city of Valparaiso lies not far 
south of here, and in its harbor is a large galleon, 
nearly ready to sail with a rich treasure. We 
should all like much to have you capture that 
vessel. ' ' 

This was good news to Drake. The next day the 
1 ' Golden Hind' ' turned its prow down the coast 
under full sail, with the friendly native on board. 
When Valparaiso was reached, Drake saw to his de- 
light that his dusky pilot had told the truth. There 
lay a great galleon, flying a Spanish flag. Not 
dreaming of an enemy in those waters, the Spaniards 
were unsuspicious until the l ' G-olden Hind' ' had 
been laid alongside and its armed crew were clam- 
bering over the bulwarks. The rich prize was cap- 
tured almost without a blow. 

The crew secured, Drake searched for the ex- 
pected treasure, and to his joy found that she was 
laden with over one hundred and twenty thousand 
dollars in gold coin, and with other costly goods, 
including about two thousand jars of Chili wine. 



130 HISTORICAL TALES. 

This rich plunder was transferred to the hold of the 
1 { Golden Hind, ' ' and the Spanish ship left to her 
disconsolate captain and crew. 

After celebrating this victory with a gleeful feast, 
in which the rich viands obtained were washed 
down freely with the captured wine, an armed 
force was sent ashore to raid the town, whose 
people fled hurriedly to the fields when they saw 
the hostile strangers approaching. In the deserted 
houses and the church a fair supply of gold and 
silver spoil was found, and what was equally wel- 
come, an abundant addition to their scanty store of 
provisions. Greatly the richer for her raid, the 
' ' Golden Hind' ' set sail again up the coast, putting 
the native pilot ashore at the place where he wished 
to land, and enriching him in a way that drew from 
him eager protestations of joy and gratitude. 

Good and bad fortune attended the adventurers 
in this voyage up the South American coast. One 
of the examples of good fortune came at a place 
called Tarapaza, where a boatload of men, who 
had gone ashore, came upon a Spaniard lying fast 
asleep on the bank of a small stream. By his side, 
to their surprise, were thirteen heavy bars of solid 
silver. The sleepy treasure-bearer and his silver 
were speedily secured. Farther inland the party 
met with another Spaniard and an Indian boy, who 
were driving some sheep, with bulging bags upon 
their backs. On opening those they were found also 
to contain silver bars. It was a joyous party that 
returned to the ' ' Golden Hind' ' with the treasure 



DRAKE AND THE SPANISH TREASURE-SHIPS. 131 

thus unexpectedly obtained, and it began to look 
almost as if the country grew silver. 

The next raid of the adventurers was at a place 
called Arica, a small seaport town at the output of 
a beautiful and fertile valley. Here lay two or 
three Spanish vessels which were quickly captured 
and searched for goods of value. The town was 
not taken, for a native whom Drake met here told 
him of a Spanish galleon, heavily laden with a 
valuable cargo, which had recently passed up the 
coast. Here was better hope for spoil than in a 
small coastwise town, and the ' ' Golden Hind' ' was 
speedily under sail again. 

' ' A great galleon is ahead of us, ' ' said Drake to 
his men. "I am told she is richly laden. The 
first man of you who sets eyes on her will win my 
hearty thanks and a heavy gold chain into the 
bargain. ' ' 

It may well be imagined that the eyes of the 
sailors were kept wide open in the days that fol- 
lowed. The man to win the golden chain was John 
Drake, the admiral's brother, who rushed to him 
one morning, as he came on deck, with the glad 
tidings, — 

' ' Yonder is the galleon!' ' 

He pointed to the far northern horizon, where 
the sails of a great ship were just becoming visible 
through the morning haze. "Make all sail!" was 
the cry, and the English cruiser glided swiftly for- 
ward before the fresh breeze towards the slow- 
moving Spanish ship. 



132 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Not dreaming of such an unlikely thing as an 
English ship in those waters, as yet never broken 
except by a Spanish keel, the captain of the galleon 
took the stranger for a craft of his own nation, and 
shortened sail as the ' ' Golden Hind' ' came up, sig- 
nalling for its officers to come on board. Drake did 
so, with a strong body of armed sailors, and when 
the Spanish captain learned his mistake it was too 
late to resist. The crew of the galleon were put 
under hatches, and her cargo, which proved to be 
rich in gold and silver, was quickly transferred to 
the ' ' Golden Hind. ' ' Then captain and crew of 
the galleon were put ashore, and the captured ship 
was set adrift, to try her chances without pilot or 
helmsman in those perilous seas. The next storm 
probably made her a grave in the breakers. 

Great had been the spoil gathered by the English 
rovers, a rich wealth of treasure being within the 
coffers of the < ' Golden Hind, ' ' while she was abun- 
dantly supplied with provisions. Drake now thought 
of returning home with the riches he had won for 
himself and his comrades. But the port of Lima, 
Pizarro' s capital, lay not far up the coast, and here 
he hoped for a rich addition to his spoil. Though 
satisfied that a messenger had been sent from Val- 
paraiso to warn the people of the presence of an 
armed English ship on the coast, he had no doubt 
of reaching Lima in advance of news brought 
overland. 

On reaching the port of Lima a number of Span- 
ish vessels were found, and, their captains being 



DRAKE AND THE SPANISH TREASURE-SHIPS. 133 

unsuspicious, were easily taken. But they con- 
tained no cargoes worth the capture. Lima lay 
several miles inland from the port, and the gov- 
ernor, on hearing of these depredations, imagined 
that the stranger must be a Spanish vessel that had 
fallen into the hands of pirates and was on a free- 
booting cruise. While he was making preparations 
for her capture the messenger from Valparaiso 
arrived and told him the real character of the 
unwelcome visitor. 

This news spurred the governor to increased exer- 
tions. An armed English war-ship on their coast 
was a foe more to be dreaded than a pirate, and the 
wealth it had taken at Valparaiso was amply worth 
recapture. "With all haste the governor got together 
a force of two thousand men, horse and foot, and at 
their head hurried to the port. There in the offing 
was the dangerous rover, lying motionless in a calm, 
and offering a promising chance for capture. 

Hastily getting ready two Spanish ships and 
manning them heavily from his forces, he sent them 
out, favored by a land-breeze which had not reached 
Drake's sails. But before they had gone far the 
"Golden Hind" felt the welcome wind and was 
soon gliding through the water. With his small 
force it was hopeless for the English captain to face 
the strongly armed Spaniards, and his only hope for 
safety lay in flight. 

The pursuit went on hour after hour, the Span- 
iards at times coming near enough to reach the 
"Golden Hind" with their shots. As the wind 



134 HISTORICAL TALES. 

varied in strength, now the chase, now the pursuers, 
gained in speed.- The Spanish ships proved fair 
sailers and might in the end have overhauled the 
Englishman but for a precaution the governor had 
neglected in his haste. Expecting to capture the 
English ship in a short run, he had not thought of 
provisioning his vessels, and as the chase went on 
their small food supply gave out and the soldiers 
were nearly famished. In the end the governor, 
who was on board, was reluctantly forced to order 
a return to port. 

Yet he did not give up hope of capturing the 
English rovers. On reaching Lima he sent out 
three more ships, this time fully provisioned. But 
Drake and his men had won too good a start to be 
overtaken, and the new pursuers never came within 
sight of him. 

Homeward bound with an abundant treasure, 
the rovers pressed merrily on. To return by the 
Straits of Magellan seemed too risky a venture with 
the Spaniards keenly on the alert, and the adven- 
turous Englishman decided to sail north, expecting 
to be able to find a passage through the seas north 
of the American continent. The icy and impassa- 
ble character of these seas was at that early date 
quite unknown. 

Onward through the Spanish waters they went, 
taking new prizes and adding to their store of 
treasure as they advanced. The coastwise towns 
were also visited and booty obtained from them. 
At length the South American continent was left 



DRAKE AND THE SPANISH TREASURE-SHIPS. 135 

behind and the ' ' G-olden Hind' ' was off the coast 
of Central America. About mid April they left the 
shore and stood out to sea, at last bound definitely 
for home. 

Drake fancied that the Pacific coast stretched 
due northward to the limit of the continent, where 
he hoped to find an easy passage back to the At- 
lantic, but after more than five weeks of a north- 
westward course, gradually verging to due north, 
he was surprised to see land again to his right. At 
first taking it for a large island, he soon learned 
that he had met the continent again and that Amer- 
ica here stretched to the northwest. 

He was off the coast of the country now called 
California, in a new region which English eyes had 
never seen, though Spaniards had been there before. 
The land seemed well peopled with Indians, very 
different in character and degree of civilization 
from those of Peru. They were simple-minded 
savages, but very friendly ; fortunately so, since, 
as they lay in harbor, the ship sprang a leak, and 
it became necessary to take measures to repair the 
damage. 

The ship was anchored in shallow water near the 
shore, her cargo and provisions were landed and 
stored, and steps taken to make the necessary re- 
pairs. While this was going on the mariners were 
visited by the savages in large numbers, occasionally 
with what were thought to be signs of hostility. 
But their friendliness never ceased, and when at 
length their visitors, with whom they had estab- 



136 HISTORICAL TALES. 

lished very amicable relations, were ready to de- 
part they manifested the greatest grief, moaning, 
wringing their hands, and shedding tears. 

The harbor of the ' ' Golden Hind' ' was in or 
near what is now called the Golden Gate, the en- 
trance to the magnificent bay of San Francisco. 
On the 23d of July, 1579, the ship weighed anchor 
and sailed out of the harbor. On the hill-side in 
the rear was gathered a large body of Indians, 
some of them fantastically attired in skins and 
adorned with feathers, others naked but for the 
painted designs which covered their bodies. They 
built bonfires in all directions in token of farewell, 
and Drake and his officers stood on deck, waving 
their hats to their new-made friends. Slowly the 
hill with its fires of friendship disappeared from 
view, and they were on the open ocean again. 

From this point the ship sailed northward, skirt- 
ing the coast. But the farther they went the 
colder the weather became, until it grew so bleak 
that it was deemed necessary to give up the hope 
of reaching home by the northern route. Yet to 
return by the way they had come would be very 
dangerous with their small force, as the Spaniards 
would probably be keenly on the lookout for them. 
Only one course remained, which was to follow the 
route taken by Magellan, sixty years before, across 
the vast Pacific, through the islands of Asia, and 
around the Cape of Good Hope. Drake had with 
him the narratives and copies of the charts of the 
first circumnavigator of the globe, and it struck 



DRAKE AND THE SPANISH TREASURE-SHIPS. 137 

him that it would be a great and glorious thing to 
take the ' ' Golden Hind' ' around the earth, and 
win him the credit of being the first Englishman to 
accomplish this wonderful task. 

The prow of the ' ' Golden Hind' ' was thereupon 
turned to the west. Quick and prosperous was the 
voyage, the sea being almost free from storms, and 
after sixty-eight days in which land had not been 
seen a green shore came in view. It was the last 
day of September, 1579. 

The voyagers had many interesting experiences 
in the eastern archipelago, but no mishaps except 
that the ship grounded on a rocky shoal near one 
of the islands. Fortunately there was no leak, and 
after throwing overboard eight of their cannon, 
three tons of cloves they had gathered in their voy- 
age through the isles of spices, and many bags of 
meal, the ( ' Golden Hind ' ' was got afloat again, 
none the worse for her dangerous misadventure. 

Stocking their vessel once more with spices and 
sago at the island of Booten, and meeting with a 
hospitable reception at the large island of Java, 
they sailed to the south, doubling the stormy Cape 
of Good Hope without mishap and entering the 
Atlantic again. Finally, on the 26th of September, 
1580, the " Golden Hind" dropped anchor in Ply- 
mouth harbor, from which she had sailed nearly 
three years before, and with wealth enough to make 
all on board rich. 

Never had England been more full of joy and 
pride than when the news of the wonderful voyage 



138 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of the ' ' Golden Hind' ' round the world was re- 
ceived and its strange adventures told. Queen 
Elizabeth was glad to make a knight of the bold 
sea-rover, changing his name from plain Francis 
Drake to Sir Francis Drake, and the people looked 
on him as their greatest hero of the sea. In our 
days acts like his would have been called piracy, for 
England was not at war with Spain. But Drake 
was made a hero all the same, and in the war that 
soon after began he did noble work in the great sea 
fight with the Spanish Armada. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE 
QUEST FOR EL DORADO. 

G-old was the beacon that lured the Spaniards to 
America, and dazzling stories were told by them of 
the riches of the countries they explored, stories 
illustrated by the marvellous wealth of Peru. It 
was well known that Cortez had not obtained all 
the treasures of Montezuma, or Pizarro all those of 
Atahualpa, and many believed that these treasures 
had been carried far away by the servants of those 
unhappy monarchs. Guiana, the northeastern sec- 
tion of South America, was looked upon by the 
Spanish adventurers as the hiding-place of this fabu- 
lous wealth. Others fancied that Guiana was the 
true El Dorado in itself, a land marvellously rich in 
gold, silver, and precious stones. Gonzalo Pizarro, 
in his expedition in 1540, had heard much from the 
Indians of this land of wealth, and Orellana brought 
back from his famous descent of the Amazon mar- 
vellous stories of the riches in gold, silver, and pre- 
cious stones of the land of the north. 

These stories, once set afloat, grew in wonder 
and magnitude through pure love of the marvellous 
or wild expansion of the fanciful tales of the Indians. 
Far inland, built on a lofty hill, so the fable ran, 
was a mighty city, whose very street watering- 
troughs were made of solid gold and silver, while 

139 



140 HISTORICAL TALES. 

' ' billets of gold lay about in heaps, as if they were 
logs of wood marked out to burn. ' ' 

In this imperial city dwelt in marvellous magnifi- 
cence a mighty king. The legend went that it was 
a habit of his to cover his body with turpentine and 
then roll in gold-dust till he gleamed like a veritable 
golden image. Then, entering his barge of state, 
with a retinue of nobles whose dresses glittered with 
gems, they would sail around a beautiful lake, end- 
ing their tour by a bath in the cooling waters. 

Where was this city? Who had seen its gold- 
emblazoned king? Certainly none of those who 
went in search of it or its monarch. Of the Spanish 
adventurers who sought for that land of treasure, 
the most persistent was a bold explorer named 
Berreo, who landed in New Granada, and set out 
thence with a large body of followers — seven hun- 
dred horsemen, the story goes. His route lay along 
the river Negro, and then down the broad Orinoco. 
Eoats were built for the descent of this great stream. 
But the route was difficult and exhausting and the 
natives usually hostile, and as they went on many 
of the men and horses died or were slain. 

For more than a year these sturdy explorers 
pushed on, reaching a point from which, if they 
could believe the natives, the city they sought was 
not far away, and Guiana and its riches were near 
at hand. As evidence, the Indians had treasure of 
their own to show, and gave Berreo ' ' ten images 
of fine gold, which were so curiously wrought, as 
he had not seen the like in Italy, Spain, or the Low 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE EL DORADO. 141 

Countries. ' ' But as they went on the gallant seven 
hundred became reduced to a weary fraction, and 
these so eager to return home that their leader was 
forced to give up the quest. He sought the island 
of Trinidad, near the coast of South America, and 
there, as governor, he dwelt for years, keeping 
alive in his soul the dream of some day going again 
in search of El Dorado. 

"While Eerreo was thus engaged, there dwelt in 
England a man of romantic and adventurous nature 
named Walter Ealeigh. He became afterwards fa- 
mous as Sir "Walter Ealeigh, and for many years 
devoted himself to the attempt to plant an English 
colony on the coast of North America. On this 
project he spent much time and money, but ill- 
fortune haunted him and all his colonies failed. 
Then he concluded to cross the ocean himself and 
restore his wasted wealth by preying on the Spanish 
treasure-ships, after the fashion of the bold Sir 
Erancis Drake. But Queen Elizabeth put an end 
to this project by clapping him in prison, on a 
matter of royal jealousy. While one of the queen's 
lovers, he had dared to marry another woman. 

While Ealeigh lay in prison, some of the ships of 
the fleet he had fitted out came back with a Spanish 
galleon they had taken, so richly laden with costly 
goods that the whole court was filled with delight. 
Part of the spoils went to the queen and another 
part to Ealeigh, and when at length he was released 
from his prison-cell his mind was set on winning 
more of the American gold. The stories of El 



142 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Dorado and its marvellous city were then in great 
vogue, for Berreo had but lately returned from his 
expedition — with no gold, indeed, but with new 
tales of marvel he had gathered from the Indians. 

It was now the year 1594. Ealeigh was but 
forty-two years of age, in the prime of life and 
full of activity and energy. His romantic turn of 
mind led him to a full belief in the stories that 
floated about, and he grew eager to attempt the 
brilliant and alluring adventure which Berreo had 
failed to accomplish. Though the Spaniard had 
failed, he had opened up what might prove the 
track to success. Raleigh had sent various expe- 
ditions to the ]STew World, but had never crossed 
the ocean himself. He now decided to seek Guiana 
and its fairyland of gold. 

A small vessel was sent in advance, under com- 
mand of Ealeigh' s friend, Jacob Whiddon, to feel 
the way and explore the mouth of the Orinoco, 
which was deemed to be the gateway to the golden 
realm. Whiddon stopped at Trinidad, and found 
Berreo, then its governor, very kindly and cordial. 
But, on one pretext or another, the treacherous 
Spaniard had the English sailors arrested and put 
in prison, until Whiddon found his crew so small 
that he was obliged to go back to England without 
seeing the Orinoco. 

Whiddon' s report made Ealeigh more eager than 
ever. He believed that Berreo was getting ready 
to go back to Guiana himself, and was seeking to 
rid himself of rivals. He hastened his preparations 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE EL DORADO. 143 

accordingly, and in February, 1595, set sail from 
Plymouth with a fleet of five well-supplied vessels, 
taking with him about one hundred gentlemen 
adventurers in addition to the crews. A number 
of small and light boats were also taken for use on 
the rivers of Guiana. Many of their friends came 
to see the voyagers off, flags floated on all the 
vessels in the harbor, and Ealeigh and his com- 
panions, dressed in their best array, stood on the 
decks, as, with set sails and flying pennons, the 
stout ships moved slowly away on their voyage of 
chance and hope. 

Ealeigh followed the example of the sea-rovers 
of his day, committing what would now be called 
piracy on the high seas. Not long had the fleet 
left the Canary Islands before a Spanish ship was 
seen and captured. It was quickly emptied of its 
cargo, — a welcome one, as it consisted of fire-arms. 
Very soon after a second ship was captured. This 
was a Flemish vessel, laden with wines. These 
were taken also, twenty hogsheads of them. About 
two months out from Plymouth the hills of Trinidad 
were sighted, and Ealeigh' s eyes rested for the first 
time on the shores of that New World in which he 
had so long taken a warm interest. 

Governor Berreo tried to treat Ealeigh as he had 
done his agent, forbidding any of the Indians to go 
on his ships on peril of death. Eut they went on 
board, for all that, and were delighted with the 
kind treatment they received. They told Ealeigh 
that several of their chiefs had been seized and 



144 HISTORICAL TALES. 

imprisoned in the town of St. Joseph, and begged 
him to rescue them. No Englishman of that day 
hesitated when the chance came to deal the Span- 
iards a blow, and a vigorous attack was soon made 
on the town, it being captured, the chiefs set free, 
and the governor himself made a prisoner. 

Ealeigh, while holding the Spaniard as a captive 
on his flag-ship, treated him with every courtesy, 
and had him to eat at his own table. Here Berreo, 
who did not suspect the purpose of the English, 
talked freely about his former expedition and gave 
his captor a good deal of very useful information. 
One thing Ealeigh learned was that his ships could 
not be taken up the Orinoco, on account of the 
sand-banks at its mouth and its dangerous channels. 
He therefore felt it necessary to leave the ships at 
Trinidad and cross to the mainland in the boats he 
had brought with him. 

One hundred men were chosen for the journey, 
the others being left to guard the fleet. An old 
galley, a barge, a ship's-boat, and two wherries 
carried them, and a young Indian pilot, who 
claimed to be familiar with the coast, was taken 
along. Trinidad lies at no great distance from the 
mainland, but stormy weather assailed the voyagers, 
and they were glad enough to enter one of the 
mouths of the river and escape the ocean billows. 
But here new troubles surrounded them, the nature 
of which Ealeigh described later, in his account of 
the expedition. He wrote : 

"If God had not sent us help, we might have 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE EL DORADO. 145 

wandered a whole year in that labyrinth of rivers, 
ere we had found any way. I know all the earth 
does not yield the like confluence of streams and 
branches, the one crossing the other so many times, 
and all so fair and large, and so like one another 
as no man can tell which to take. And if we 
went by the sun or compass, hoping thereby to go 
directly one way or the other, yet that way also 
we were carried in a circle among multitudes of 
islands. Every island was so bordered with big 
trees as no man could see any farther than the 
breadth of the river or length of the branch. ' ' 

The Indian pilot proved to be useless in this 
medley of water-ways, and only chance extricated 
the voyagers from the labyrinth in which they were 
involved. This chance was the meeting and captur- 
ing a canoe with three natives, who became friendly 
when they found they had nothing to fear from the 
strange white men. One of them was an old man 
who knew the river thoroughly, and whom presents 
and kind words induced to guide them past their 
difficulties. 

Eesting that night on a little knoll on the wooded 
banks of the stream, they were off again early the 
next morning. The river was still swift and vio- 
lent, broken here and there with rapids, where they 
had to land and pull the boats. There were shoals 
also, which they had much trouble in getting over. 
And the banks were so crowded with trees and high 
reeds that they could not land, and were almost 
stifled from the closeness of the air. 
10 



146 HISTORICAL TALES. 

After four hard and weary days of this kind 
they reached a smoother channel and could proceed 
more easily. But their work was still far from 
easy, for the inflowing tidal waters had left them 
and they had the swift current of the river to 
breast, while the tropic heat grew more oppressive 
day by day. It was hard work for the gentlemen 
rovers in that tropical climate, where the dense for- 
est growth cut off every breath of air and their 
diminishing bread forced them to be put on short 
allowance. They began to complain bitterly, and 
Ealeigh had to use all his powers of persuasion to 
induce them to go on. 

Yet the country was in many ways beautiful. 
Here and there the woods ceased and broad plains 
spread out, covered with luxuriant herbage, amid 
which rose at intervals groves of beautiful trees. 
Graceful deer would come down to the water's 
edge and gaze fearlessly on the travellers with their 
big, soft eyes. ' ' On the banks of these rivers/ ' 
says Ealeigh, ' < were divers sorts of fruits good to 
eat; flowers, too, and trees of such variety as were 
sufficient to make two volumes of travels. We re- 
freshed ourselves many times with the fruits of the 
country, and sometimes with fowls and fish. "We 
saw birds of all colors : some carnation, some crim- 
son, orange, tawny, purple, and so on; and it was 
unto us a great good passing time to behold them, 
besides the relief we found by killing some store of 
them with our fowling-pieces. ' ' 

The adventurers at length reached an Indian 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE EL DORADO. 147 

village of which their old guide had told them, and 
here, after the natives had got over their fright and 
learned that the strangers meant them no harm, 
they were very hospitably entertained. Thence 
they went onward, day after day, seeing many 
canoes on the river and landing at various villages. 
One of the canoes contained three Spaniards, who 
escaped from the effort to capture them, and Ra- 
leigh soon learned that the Spaniards had told the 
natives that the English were robbers and canni- 
bals. To overcome the effect of this story, the 
greatest care was taken to treat the Indians with 
kindness and gentleness, and to punish in their 
presence any of the men who maltreated them. 
This qjirickly had its effect, for the news spread 
that the new-comers were the friends of the red 
men, and they were rewarded by every attention 
the natives could bestow on them. Provisions 
were brought them in profusion, — fish, fowl, and 
fruit, great roasted haunches of venison, and other 
viands. Among these were sweet and delicious 
pineapples of enormous size, ' ' the prince of fruits, ' ' 
as Raleigh called them. 

Finally, after they had gone about one hundred and 
fifty miles up the Orinoco, they reached the point 
where another great river, the Caroni, empties into 
it. The country here was more beautiful than they 
had yet seen, and prosperous Indian villages were 
numerous on the bordering plains. The natives had 
heard of the amicable character of the new-comers, 
and greeted them with great friendliness, doing all 



148 HISTORICAL TALES. 

they could to show how they trusted and admired 
them. With one old chief, named Topiawara, Ea- 
leigh held many interesting talks and learned from 
him much about the country and the people. In 
return he told him about his own country and its 
great queen, and one day showed him a portrait of 
Queen Elizabeth, before which the simple natives 
bowed themselves as if it were the figure of a 
goddess they saw. 

Many days were spent with these people, in 
hunting, fishing, and exploring, but, ask as they 
would, they could learn nothing about the land of 
gold and the marvellous city they had come so far 
to seek. The old chief told him that Guiana had 
many fertile plains and valleys and had mines of 
silver and gold, but the gold-dust king he knew 
nothing about. Finally, Ealeigh decided to go up 
the Caroni, three parties being sent to explore its 
vicinity, while he with a fourth rowed up the 
stream. He had been told of a mighty cataract, 
which he was very anxious to see, and this was at 
length reached, after a long struggle with the strong 
current of the river. 

The cataract proved to be a series of giant cas- 
cades, ten or twelve in number, in the words of 
Ealeigh, ' ' every one as high above the other as a 
church tower, which fell with that fury that the 
rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been 
all covered over with a great shower of rain. And 
in some places we took it at first for a smoke that 
had risen over some great town. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND THE EL DORADO. 149 

' { I never saw a more beautiful country, ' ' he con- 
tinues, ' ' or more lively prospects ; hills so raised, 
here and there, over the valleys; the river winding 
into divers branches; the plains adjoining all green 
grass without bush or stubble; the ground of hard 
sand, easy to march on, either for horses or foot; 
the birds, towards evening, singing on every tree 
with a thousand sweet tunes ; cranes and herons 
of white, crimson, and carnation, perching on the 
river' s side ; the air fresh, with a gentle, easterly 
wind; and every stone we stooped to pick up prom- 
ising either gold or silver by its complexion. ' ' 

On the return to the junction of the rivers, the 
land parties had similar stories to tell, and had 
pieces of golden ore to show, of which they claimed 
to have found plentiful indications. This story 
filled the whole party with dazzling hopes. Here, 
in the rocks at least, were the riches of which they 
had heard so much. If El Dorado did not exist, 
here was the native wealth that might well bring it 
into existence. 

The prospectors had done all that lay in their 
power, and now felt it necessary to return to their 
ships, taking with them, at his request, the son of 
the aged chief, who wished him to see England, and 
perhaps to return at some time to succeed him, 
with the aid of the valiant English. 

We must briefly close the story of Ealeigh and 
his quest. After various adventures, the party 
reached Plymouth again in August, 1595, and the 



150 HISTORICAL TALES. 

narrative of their discoveries was read everywhere 
with the utmost interest. 

But many years passed before the explorer could 
return again. He became engaged in the wars 
against Spain, and after the death of the queen was 
arrested for treason by order of James I. and im- 
prisoned for thirteen years. In 1617, twenty-two 
years after his first expedition, he returned to the 
Orinoco, this time with a fleet of thirteen vessels. 

His release from prison had been gained by bribery 
and the promise to open a rich mine of gold in 
Guiana, but the expedition proved a failure. There 
was a sharp fight with a party of Spaniards at St. 
Thomas, in which Ealeigh' s son was killed. As for 
the gold mine, it could not be found, and the expe- 
dition was forced to return with none of the hoped- 
for wealth to show. 

And now Ealeigh' s misfortunes culminated. He 
had been sentenced to death for treason in 1603, but 
had been reprieved. The king had him arrested 
again on the old charge, and the king of Spain de- 
manded that he should be punished for the attack 
on St. Thomas in times of peace. James I. did not 
like Ealeigh, and wished to stand well with Spain, 
so the famous explorer fell a victim to the royal 
policy and dislike and was beheaded under the old 
sentence in October, 1618. Since then El Dorado 
has lain concealed in the mists of legend and ro- 
mance, though mines of gold have been worked in 
the region which Ealeigh explored. 



MORGAN, THE FREEBOOTER, 
AND THE RAID ON PANAMA. 

During the seventeenth century the Spanish Main 
was beset with a horde of freebooters or buccaneers, 
as they called themselves, to whose fierce attacks 
the treasure-ships bound for Spain were constantly 
exposed, and who did not hesitate to assail the 
strongholds of the Spaniards in quest of plunder. 
They differed from pirates only in the fact that 
their operations were confined to Spain and her 
colonies, no war giving warrant to their atrocities. 
Most ferocious and most successful among these 
worthies was Henry Morgan, a man of Welsh birth, 
who made his name dreaded by his daring and cru- 
elty throughout the New-World realms of Spain. 
The most famous among the deeds of this rover 
of the seas was his capture of the city of Panama, 
which we shall here describe. 

On the 24th of October, 1670, there set sail from 
the island haunts of the freebooters the greatest 
fleet which these lawless wretches had ever got to- 
gether. It consisted of thirty-seven ships, small 
and large, Morgan's flag-ship, of thirty-two guns, 
being the largest, and flying the English standard. 
The men had gathered from all the abiding-places 
of their fraternity, eager to serve under so famous 
a leader as Morgan, and looking for rich spoil under 

151 



152 HISTORICAL TALES. 

a man whose rule of conduct was, "Where the 
Spaniards obstinately defend themselves there is 
something to take, and their best fortified places 
are those which contain the most treasure. " 

Not until they reached the vicinity of the isth- 
mus did Morgan announce to his followers the plan 
he had conceived, which was to attack the im- 
portant and opulent city of Panama, in which he 
expected to find a vast wealth of gold and silver. 
It was no trifling adventure. This city lay on 
the Pacific side of the Isthmus of Panama, and 
could be reached only by a long and toilsome land 
journey, the route well defended by nature and 
doubtless by art, while not a man on board the fleet 
had ever trod the way thither. To supply them- 
selves with a guide the island of St. Catharine, 
where the Spaniards confined their criminals, was 
attacked and taken, and three of the convicts were 
selected for guides, under promise of liberty and 
reward. 

Panama was at that time one of the largest and 
wealthiest cities in America. It contained some 
seven thousand houses, one-third the number being 
large and handsome dwellings, many of them 
strongly built of stone and richly furnished. Walls 
surrounded the city, which was well prepared for 
defence. It was the emporium for the precious 
metals of Peru and Mexico, two thousand mules 
being kept for the transportation of those rich ores. 
It was also the seat of a great trade in negro slaves, 
for the supply of Chili and Peru. The merchants 



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MORGAN AND THE RAID ON PANAMA. ■ 153 

of the place lived in great opulence and the churches 
were magnificently adorned, the chief among them 
being a handsome cathedral. Beautiful paintings 
and other costly works of art ornamented the prin- 
cipal dwellings, and everything concurred to add 
to the importance and beauty of the place. 

A century earlier Sir Francis Drake had led his 
men near enough to Panama to behold the distant 
sea from the top of a high tree. But he had con- 
tented himself with waylaying and plundering a 
mule-train laden with treasure, and in 1670 it 
seemed the act of madness for a horde of free- 
booters to attack the city itself. Yet this was 
what the daring Morgan designed to do. 

The first thing to be done was to capture Fort 
St. Laurent, a strong place on an almost inacces- 
sible hill, near the banks of the Chagres Eiver. 
Four ships, with four hundred men, were sent 
against this fort, which was vigorously defended 
by its garrison, but was taken at length by the ex- 
pedient of firing the palisades and buildings of the 
fort — composed of light wood — by means of burn- 
ing arrows. The assailants suffered heavily, losing 
more than half their force, while of the garrison 
only twenty-four were taken, many of the others 
having leaped from the walls into the river, pre- 
ferring death to capture by their ferocious foes. 
From the prisoners it was learned that the people 
of Panama were not ignorant of Morgan's purpose, 
and that the threatened city was defended by more 
than three thousand men. 



154 HISTORICAL TALES. 

As the remainder of the fleet drew near, the 
freebooters, seeing the English flag flying on the 
fort, manifested their joy by the depths of their 
potations, getting so drunk, in fact, that they man- 
aged to run four of the ships on the rocks at the 
mouth of the Chagres, among them the admiral's 
ship. The crews and cargoes were saved, but the 
vessels were total wrecks, much to Morgan' s chagrin. 

At length, on the 18th of January, 1671, the 
march on Panama actually began, with a force of 
thirteen hundred picked men, five hundred being 
left to garrison the fort and one hundred and fifty 
to seize some Spanish vessels that were in the river. 
The means of conveyance being limited, and the 
need of marching light important, a very small 
supply of provisions was taken, it being expected 
to find an abundance on the route. But in this 
the raiders were seriously at fault, the Spaniards 
fleeing with all their cattle and cutting all the grow- 
ing grain, so that the buccaneers soon found them- 
selves almost destitute of supplies. 

The journey was made in boats up the river as 
far as practicable, five small vessels carrying the 
artillery. At the end of the second day most of 
the men were forced to abandon the boats and 
prosecute their journey on foot. On the third day 
they found themselves in a marshy forest, which 
they traversed with difficulty and reached the town 
of Cedro Eueno. Here they had hoped to find food, 
but the place was deserted and not a scrap of pro- 
visions left. 



MORGAN AND THE RAID ON PANAMA. 155 

The affair was now growing very serious, all their 
food having been consumed and they left in immi- 
nent danger of starvation. M^ny of them were 
reduced to eat the leaves of the trees in their ex- 
tremity. They found themselves also benumbed 
with cold as they spent the night unsheltered on 
the chilly river-bank. During the next day their 
route followed the stream, the canoes being dragged 
along, or rowed where the water was of sufficient 
depth. The Spaniards still carried away all food 
from the country before them, the only things they 
found being some large sacks of hides. These, in 
their extremity, were used as food, the leather being 
scraped, beaten, and soaked in water, after which it 
was roasted. Even then it could not be swallowed 
without the aid of copious draughts of water. 

Only the courage and determination of the chiefs 
induced the men to go on under such severe priva- 
tions. The fifth day' s journey ended as badly as 
the previous ones, the only food found being a little 
flour, fruit, and wine, so small in quantity that 
Morgan had it distributed among the weaker mem- 
bers of his troop, some of whom were so faint as to 
seem on the point of death. For the rest of the 
men there was nothing to eat but leaves and the 
grass of the meadows. 

The feebler men were now put on board the 
boats, the stronger continuing to travel by land, 
but very slowly, frequent rests being needed on ac- 
count of their great exhaustion. It seemed, indeed, 
as if the expedition would have to be abandoned, 



156 HISTORICAL TALES. 

when, to their delirious joy, they found a great 
supply of maize, which the Spaniards by some 
oversight had abandoned in a granary. Many of 
them, in their starving condition, devoured this 
grain raw. Others roasted it wrapped in banana 
leaves. The supply was soon exhausted, but for a 
time it gave new vigor to the famished men. 

On the following day all the food they found was 
a sack of bread and some cats and dogs, all of which 
were greedily devoured ; and farther on, at the 
town of Cruces, the head of navigation on the 
Chagres, a number of vessels of wine were dis- 
covered. This they hastily drank, with the result 
that all the drinkers fell ill and fancied they were 
poisoned. Their illness, however, was merely the 
natural effect of hasty drinking in their exhausted 
state, and soon left them. 

At this point a number of the men were sent 
back with the boats to where the ships had been 
left, the force that continued the march amounting 
to eleven hundred. With these the journey pro- 
ceeded, the principal adventure being an attack 
by a large body of Indians, who opposed the in- 
vaders with much valor, only retreating when their 
chief was killed. 

About noon of the ninth day a steep hill was as- 
cended, from whose summit, to their delight, the 
buccaneers beheld the distant Pacific. But what 
gave them much livelier joy was to see, in a valley 
below them, a great herd of bulls, cows, horses, 
and asses, under the care of some Spaniards, who 



MORGAN AND THE RAID ON PANAMA. 157 

took to flight the moment they saw the formidable 
force of invaders. Only an utter lack of judgment, 
or the wildness of panic in the Spaniards, could 
have induced them to leave this prey to their nearly 
starved foes. It was an oversight which was to 
prove fatal to them. Then was the time to attack 
instead of to feed their ruthless enemies. 

The freebooters, faint with famine and fatigue, 
gained new strength at the sight of the welcome 
herd of food animals. They rushed hastily down 
and killed a large number of them, devouring the 
raw flesh with such a fury of hunger that the 
blood ran in streams from their lips. What could 
not be eaten was taken away to serve for a future 
supply. As yet Panama had not been seen, but 
soon, from a hill-top, they discerned its distant 
towers. The vision was hailed with the blare of 
trumpets and shouts of "victory!" and the buc- 
caneers encamped on the spot, resolved to attack the 
city the next day. 

The Spaniards, meanwhile, were not at rest. A 
troop of fifty horsemen was sent to reconnoitre, 
and a second detachment occupied the passes, to 
prevent the escape of the enemy in case of defeat. 
Eut the freebooters were not disturbed in their 
camp, and were allowed a quiet night' s rest after 
their abundant meal of raw flesh. 

The next day Morgan led his men against the 
city, skilfully avoiding the main road, which was 
defended by batteries, and passing through a thick 
and pathless wood. Two hours of this flanking 



158 HISTORICAL TALES. 

march brought them in sight of the Spanish forces, 
which were very numerous, consisting of four regi- 
ments of the line and nearly three thousand other 
soldiers. They had with them also a great herd of 
wild bulls under the charge of Indians and negroes, 
from which much was hoped in the assault. 

Morgan and his men were much discouraged by 
the multitude and military array of their foes, but 
nothing remained for them but a desperate fight, 
and, with two hundred of their best marksmen in 
front, they descended to the broad plain on which 
the Spaniards awaited them. They had no sooner 
reached it than the Spanish cavalry charged, while 
the bulls were driven tumultuously upon them. 

This carefully devised assault proved a disastrous 
failure. The horsemen found themselves in marshy 
ground, where they were exposed to a hot and 
well-directed fire, numbers of them falling before 
they could effect a retreat. The charge of the 
bulls, on which so much reliance had been placed, 
proved an equal failure, and with wild shouts the 
freebooters advanced, firing rapidly and with an 
accuracy of aim that soon strewed the ground with 
the dead. 

The Spaniards, driven back by this impetuous 
charge, now turned the bulls against the rear of 
their enemy. But many of these had been cattle- 
raisers and knew well how to act against such a 
foe, driving them off with shouts and the waving 
of colored flags and killing numbers of them. In 
the end, after a battle of two hours' duration, the 



MORGAN AND THE RAID ON PANAMA. 159 

Spaniards, despite their great superiority of num- 
bers, were utterly defeated, a great many being 
killed on the field and others in the panic of 
flight. 

But the freebooters had lost heavily, and Panama, 
a city defended by walls and forts, remained to be 
taken. Morgan knew that success depended on 
taking instant advantage of the panic of the enemy, 
and he advanced without delay against the town. 
It was strongly defended with artillery, but the 
impetuous assault of the freebooters carried all 
before it, and after a three hours' fight the city was 
in their hands. 

The scenes that followed were marked by the 
most atrocious ferocity and vandalism. The city 
was given up to indiscriminate pillage, attended by 
outrages of every kind, and in the end was set on 
fire by Morgan' s orders and burned to the ground, 
much of its great wealth being utterly consumed 
through the sheer instinct of destruction. 

Fortunately for the people of Panama, the ma- 
jority of them had sought safety in flight, taking 
their women and all their portable wealth. In 
pursuit of those that had fled by water Morgan 
sent out a well-manned ship, which returned after a 
two days' cruise with three prizes. It also brought 
back news that a large galleon, deeply laden with 
treasure in gold and silver and carrying away the 
principal women of the town, with their jewels, 
had escaped. It was poorly manned and defended 
and for days Morgan made strenuous efforts to 



160 HISTORICAL TALES. 

discover and capture it, but fortunately this rich 
prize eluded his grasp. 

For three weeks the freebooters occupied the site 
of the burned city, many of them engaged in 
searching the ruins for gold and silver, while some, 
who were discontented with the acts of their leader, 
conspired to seize the largest ship in the harbor 
and start on a piratical cruise of their own down 
the Pacific. This coming to Morgan's ears on the 
eve of its execution, he defeated it by causing the 
main-mast of the ship to be cut down, and after- 
wards by setting fire to all the ships in the harbor. 

The return of the freebooters had its items of 
interest. The booty, consisting of gold, silver, and 
jewels, was laden on a large number of animals, 
beside which disconsolately walked six hundred 
prisoners, men, women, and children, Morgan re- 
fusing them their liberty except on payment of a 
ransom which they could not procure. Some of 
them succeeded in obtaining the ransom on the 
march, but the majority were taken to Chagres. 
From there they were sent in a ship to Porto Bello, 
a neighboring coast town, Morgan threatening that 
place with destruction unless a heavy ransom was 
sent him. The inhabitants sent word back that not 
a half-penny would be paid, and that he might do 
what he pleased. What he pleased to do was to 
carry out his threat of destroying the town. 

The final outcome of this frightful raid remains 
to be told. It demonstrated that Morgan was as 
faithless to his companions as he was ferocious to 



MORGAN AND THE RAID ON PANAMA. 161 

his victims. On their way back from Panama he 
ordered that every man should be searched and 
every article they had secreted be added to the 
general store. To induce them to consent he offered 
himself to be searched first. In the final division, 
however, of the spoil, which was valued at four hun- 
dred and forty-three thousand two hundred pounds 
weight of silver, he played the part of a traitor, 
many of the most precious articles disappearing 
from the store and the bulk of the precious stones 
especially being added by Morgan to his share. 

This and other acts of the leader created such a 
hostile feeling among the men that a mutiny was 
imminent, to avoid which Morgan secretly set sail 
with his own and three other vessels, whose com- 
manders had shared with him in the unequal di- 
vision of the spoil. The fury of the remaining free- 
booters, on finding that they had been abandoned, 
was extreme, and they determined to pursue and 
attack Morgan and his confederates, but lack of 
provisions prevented them from carrying this into 
effect. 

Meanwhile, events were taking place not much to 
the comfort of the freebooting fraternity. An Eng- 
lish ship-of-the-line arrived at Jamaica with orders 
to bring home the governor to answer for the pro- 
tection he had given < ' these bloodthirsty and plun- 
dering rascals, ' ' while the governor who succeeded 
him issued the severest orders against any future 
operations of the freebooters. 

From this time Morgan withdrew from his career 
11 



162 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of robbery, content to enjoy the wealth which he 
had so cruelly and treacherously obtained. He 
settled in Jamaica, where he was permitted to enjoy 
in security his ill-gotten wealth. In fact, the Brit- 
ish government showed its real sentiment concern- 
ing his career by promoting him to high offices and 
giving him the honor of knighthood. As a result 
this faithless and cruel pirate bore during the re- 
mainder of his life the distinction of being ad- 
dressed as Sir Henry Morgan. 



A DRAMA OF PL UNDER, MURDER, 
AND REVENGE. 

A famous story of American history is that which 
tells of the massacre of the French settlers in Flor- 
ida by the Spaniards of St. Augustine, and of the 
signal revenge taken on the murderers by the French 
chevalier Dominique de Gourgues. There is a par- 
allel tale to tell about Brazil, not so full of the ele- 
ment of romance, yet for all that an interesting 
story and well worth the telling. 

The great Portuguese colony of Brazil, like many 
of the Spanish colonies, was open to the attacks of 
buccaneers and of free lances of the seas bearing 
the flags of various countries of Europe. There 
was not an important port of the country, except 
its capital, Eio Janeiro, that escaped attack by hos- 
tile fleets, eager for spoil, during the seventeenth 
century, and early in the eighteenth Eio itself was 
made the victim of assault. A city of over twelve 
thousand people, and the gateway to a rich gold- 
mining country in the rear, its wealth invited a 
visit from the prize-seekers, though the strength 
of its population and garrison long kept these 
away. Its turn for assault came in 1710. 

In that year a squadron appeared in the waters 
outside the harbor on which the people looked with 
doubt. It flew the French flag, and that standard 

163 



164 HISTORICAL TALES. 

had not been a welcome visitor in the past. In 
fact, it was commanded by a daring Frenchman 
named Duclerc, who was on the seas for spoil. But 
a look at the strong defences of the harbor entrance, 
and some exchange of shots, warned him of the perils 
that would attend an attempt to pass them by force, 
and he sailed on to a point some forty miles down 
the coast, where he landed a party of a thousand 
marines. 

His design to attack the city with this small 
party seemed folly. The governor, Francisco de 
Castro, had a force of eight thousand Portuguese 
troops, besides five thousand armed negroes and 
several hundred Indian bowmen. But he lacked 
the heart of a soldier, and Duclerc' s marines 
marched like so many buccaneers through the 
forest for seven days without meeting a foeman. 
Even when near the city the only enemies in sight 
were a handful of men led by a friar, who attacked 
them boldly in defence of his church. After cap- 
turing this, the daring French charged into the city 
in the face of the fire from the forts on the sur- 
rounding hills, to which the governor' s troops had 
been withdrawn. 

The very boldness of the assault, and the failure 
of the governor to guard the streets with troops, 
nearly led to success. Little resistance was made 
by the few soldiers in the city, and the French trav- 
ersed the narrow streets until the central square 
was reached. Here they met their first check 
from a party of fifty students, who had entered the 



A DRAMA OF PLUNDER, MURDER, AND REVENGE. 165 

palace of the governor and fired upon them from 
the windows. The first French assailants who 
forced their way in were taken prisoners and tied 
to the furniture. In the custom-house adjoining 
was the magazine. Here, as the storekeeper was 
hastily giving out ammunition, a fellow with a 
lighted match approached and carelessly set fire to 
the powder. In a moment the building was blown 
into the air, and the palace, which the French were 
still assailing, was set on fire. 

The people were now rising, and the several de- 
tachments into which the attacking force had di- 
vided found themselves fiercely assailed. Duclerc, 
at the head of the main body, after losing heavily, 
barricaded himself in a stone warehouse on the 
quay, round which his foes gathered thickly. 
"While there the bells of the city rang out merrily, 
a sound which he fancied to be made by his own 
men, who he thought were thus celebrating their 
victory. In reality it signified the victory of the 
Portuguese, who had fallen upon, defeated, and 
slaughtered one of his detachments. A second 
detachment, which had entered and begun to plun- 
der the magazine, was set upon by the rabble and 
completely butchered. Duclerc' s defence soon grew 
hopeless, and he was forced to surrender at dis- 
cretion. The Portuguese sullied their victory by 
acts of cruel reprisal, many of the prisoners in 
their hands being murdered. In all nearly seven 
hundred of the French were killed and wounded. 
Six hundred, including the wounded, were taken 



166 HISTORICAL TALES. 

prisoners, and of these many died through bad treat- 
ment in the prisons. Duclerc was murdered some- 
months after being taken. Soon after the fight the 
squadron appeared off the port, where its officers, 
learning of the loss of the assailants, squared their 
yards and sailed away for France. Thus ended the 
first act in our tragedy of plunder. 

The second act was one of revenge. In France 
was found a second Dominique de Gourgues to call 
to a harsh account the murderers of his country- 
men. France, indeed, was in a fury throughout 
when the news came of the inhuman slaughter of 
its citizens. The man who played the part of De 
Gourgues was a distinguished and able naval officer 
named M. de Guay-Trouin. He was moved by a 
double motive. While hot for revenge, the hope 
for plunder was an equally inspiring force. And 
the fame that might come to him with victory 
added still another motive. The path was made 
easy for him, for the government gave its approval 
to his enterprise, and certain wealthy citizens of 
St. Malo, eager for gain, volunteered the money to 
fit out the expedition. 

It was important to keep the affair secret, and 
the vessels were fitted out at different ports to 
avoid suspicion. Yet the rumor that an unusual 
number of war-vessels were being got ready was 
soon afloat and reached Portugal, where its purpose 
was suspected, and a fleet of merchant and war- ves- 
sels was hurried to sea with supplies and reinforce- 
ments for Eio. The suspicion reached England, also, 



A DRAMA OF PLUNDER, MURDER, AND REVENGE. 167 

and that country, then on the side of Portugal, 
sent out a fleet to blockade Brest, where the ves- 
sels of the expedition then lay, and prevent its 
sailing. But Admiral Trouin was not the man to be 
caught in a trap, and he hurried his ships out of port 
before they were quite ready, leaving the British 
an empty harbor to seal up. The work of prepa- 
ration was finished at Eochelle, whence the fleet 
sailed in June, 1711. It consisted of seven line-of- 
battle ships, their number of guns varying from sev- 
enty-four to fifty-six, six frigates, and four smaller 
vessels, and had on board five thousand picked men, 
— a formidable force to send against a colonial city. 

The powerful fleet made its way safely over the 
sea, and reached the vicinity of the northern Bra- 
zilian port of Bahia on August 27. Trouin had 
some thought of beginning his work here, but his 
water-supply was getting low and he felt obliged to 
hasten on. On the 11th of September he found 
himself off the Bay of Eio de Janeiro, with the 
city and its environing hills in full view. 

The Portuguese had got ahead of him, the fleet 
from Lisbon having arrived, giving warning of the 
danger and reinforcing the garrison. Three forts 
and eleven batteries defended the narrow-mouthed 
harbor, within which lay four ships-of-the-line and 
as many frigates. Had all this force been directed 
by a man of ability the French might have found 
entrance to the bay impossible. But Francisco de 
Castro, the hopeless governor of the year before, 
was still at the head of affairs, and no man could 



168 HISTORICAL TALES. 

have played more thoroughly into the hands of the 
French. 

As it chanced, fortune favored the assailants. A 
heavy fog descended, under cover of which the fleet 
ran with little damage past the forts and entered 
the harbor. When the fog rose the Portuguese 
were dismayed to see their foes inside. Caspar da 
Costa, the admiral of their fleet, was known as an 
able commander, but he was old and in feeble health, 
and such a panic now assailed him that he ran his 
ships in haste ashore and set fire to them, leaving 
to his foes the undisputed command of the harbor. 
Admiral Trouin had won the first move in the game. 

Governor de Castro proved to be as completely 
demoralized as Admiral da Costa. He had twice 
as many troops as the French, but not half the 
courage and ability of his adversary. Fort Yille- 
gagnon, one of the chief defences, was blown up 
by the mismanagement of its garrison, and during 
the state of panic of the Portuguese Trouin landed 
about four thousand men, erecting a battery on an 
island within easy cannon-shot of the city, and oc- 
cupying a range of hills to the left which gave him 
command of that section of the place. The gov- 
ernor with his troops looked on from a distance 
while the French pillaged the adjoining suburb, 
destitute of tactics that any one could discover 
unless he proposed to let the French enter the 
streets and then attack them from the houses. 

It was in this way they had been defeated the 
year before, but Trouin was too old a soldier to 



A DRAMA OF PLUNDER, MURDER, AND REVENGE. 169 

be caught in such a trap. He erected batteries 
on the surrounding hill-slopes till the town was 
commanded on three sides, while the governor kept 
the bulk of his forces at a distance, waiting for no 
one knew what. Trouin had been permitted, with 
scarcely a blow in defence, to make himself master 
of the situation, and he needed only to get his guns 
in place to be able to batter the town to the dust. 

He now sent a demand to the governor to sur- 
render, saying that he had been sent by the king 
of France to take revenge for the murder of Du- 
clerc and the inhuman slaughter of his men. De 
Castro answered that his duty to his king would not 
permit him to surrender, and sought to show that 
the French had been honorably killed in battle and 
Duclerc murdered by an assassin beyond his control. 

A poor affair of a governor De Castro proved, 
and the French were permitted to go on with their 
works almost unmolested, the Portuguese occupying 
hill forts, the fire from which did little harm to the 
enemy. Trouin had already begun the bombard- 
ment of the city, and on receiving the governor' s 
answer he kept his guns at work all night. At the 
same time there raged a tropical storm of great 
violence, accompanied by thunders that drowned 
the roar of the guns, the frightful combination 
throwing the people into such a state that they all 
fled in blind terror, the troops in the town with 
them. In the morning, when Trouin was ready to 
launch his storming parties, word was brought him 
that the city was deserted and lay at his mercy. 



170 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Some of the richest magazines had been set on fire 
by the governor' s order, but otherwise the rich city 
was abandoned, with all its wealth, to the French. 

Of the relics of Duclerc' s force, about five hun- 
dred remained alive in the city. These do not 
seem to have been then in prison, but living at large, 
and they were already abroad and plundering the 
abandoned city when the French forces entered. 
They had met good treatment as well as bad. 
Some of the people had been kind and hospitable 
to them, and in the sack of the city that ensued 
the houses of these charitable citizens were marked 
and left untouched. 

Otherwise the sack was general, houses and 
warehouses being broken open, and quantities of 
valuable goods which could not be taken off being 
thrown into the mud of the streets. Now was the 
opportunity for the Portuguese to attack. Trouin 
was aware of the danger, but was unable to control 
his men, and a sudden assault by the garrison might 
have proved disastrous to the French. But the 
opportunity was allowed to pass, the governor, in 
fact, surrendering all his forts and marching his 
troops a league from the city, where he lay waiting 
reinforcements from the interior while the French 
plundered at their leisure. 

Trouin was wise enough to know that his position 
was perilous. He might be overwhelmed by num- 
bers, and it was important to finish his work and 
get away with little delay. But the plunder of the 
city was not sufficient for his purpose, and he sent 



A DRAMA OF PLUNDER, MURDER, AND REVENGE. 171 

word to the governor that he must ransom it or it 
would be burned. To make his word good he began 
by setting fire to the environs. 

De Castro, eager to get rid of his foes at any 
price, offered six hundred thousand cruzadoes. This 
was refused by Trouin, and to stir up the governor to 
a better offer, the admiral took his messenger through 
the city and showed him that he was spoiling every- 
thing that fire would not burn. Learning, how- 
ever, that the expected reinforcements might soon 
arrive, anxiety induced him to march his men to 
the front of the Portuguese camp, where he began 
to negotiate for better terms. The only addition 
De Castro would agree to was to promise the French 
a supply of cattle for food, fifteen days being allowed 
to collect the ransom. 

Trouin, knowing well that he had no time to 
waste, accepted the terms, and none too soon, for 
shortly afterwards a strong body of reinforcements, 
led by an able general, entered the Portuguese camp. 
They came too late, the treaty had been made, and 
the new general felt bound in honor to make it good. 
So the ransom was paid, and on the 4th of Novem- 
ber the triumphant French set sail, their ships 
deep laden with the rich plunder of the Brazilian 
capital and the gold of the governor's ransom. 

The return home was not attended with the suc- 
cess of the earlier part of the expedition. Trouin 
had left Bahia to be visited and plundered on his 
return, but when he came near it the weather was 
so stormy that he was obliged to abandon this part 



172 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of his plan. The storms followed the fleet on its 
way across the seas, and rose to snch a height that 
two of his ships went to the bottom, carrying down 
twelve hundred men. One of these was the finest 
ship of the fleet, and in consequence had been 
laden with the most valuable booty. Of gold and 
silver alone it took down with it a weight valued 
at six hundred thousand livres. A third vessel 
went ashore and was wrecked at Cayenne. Yet 
with all these losses, so much wealth was brought 
home that the speculators in spoil made a profit of 
ninety-two per cent, on their investment. 

The French had won in large measure revenge 
and plunder, while Trouin had gained his meed of 
fame. It was now Portugal' s time for vengeance, 
and it was visited principally on the worthless gov- 
ernor to whose cowardice the disaster was due. He 
had been praised and rewarded for the victory over 
Duclerc's expedition — praise and reward which he 
certainly did not deserve. For very similar con- 
duct he was now deposed and sentenced to degra- 
dation and perpetual imprisonment, on the charge 
of cowardice and lack of judgment. His nephew 
was banished for life for bad conduct, and a captain 
who had given up his fort and fled was hung in 
effigy. There were no others to punish, and Portu- 
gal was obliged to hold its hand, France being a foe 
beyond its reach. Rio had met with a terrible 
misfortune, from which it took many years to 
recover, and rarely have the sanguinary deeds of a 
murderous rabble led to so severe a retribution. 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF 
THE FREEBOOTERS. 

The March of the Ten Thousand, from Babylon 
to the Black Sea, is one of the famous events of 
history. The march of the three hundred, from 
the Pacific to the Atlantic, which we have here to 
tell, is scarcely known to history at all, yet it was 
marked by a courage and command of resources 
as great as those of the ancient Greeks. We think 
our readers will agree with us when they read this 
story, taken from the records of the freebooters on 
the Spanish Main. 

After ravaging the settlements of Spain on the 
Atlantic coasts, various fleets of these piratical ad- 
venturers sought the Pacific waters in 1685, and 
there for several years made life scarce worth living 
to the inhabitants of the Spanish coast cities. 
Time and again these were plundered of their 
wealth, numbers of their ships were taken, and a 
veritable reign of terror prevailed. As time went 
on, however, most of these freebooters withdrew, 
satisfied with their abundant gains, so that, by the 
end of 1687, only a few of them remained, and 
these were eager to return with their ill-gotten 
wealth to their native land. 

This remnant of the piratical fraternity, less than 
three hundred in number, had their head-quarters 

173 



174 HISTORICAL TALES. 

on an island in the Bay of Mapalla, on the Central 
American coast. "What vessels they had left were 
in a wretched condition, utterly unfit to attempt 
the vast sea voyage by way of the Straits of Ma- 
gellan, and nothing seemed to remain for them but 
an attempt to cross the continent by way of Nica- 
ragua and Honduras, fighting their way through a 
multitude of enemies. To the pen of Ravenneau 
de Lussan, one of the adventurers, we are indebted 
for the narrative of the singular and interesting 
adventure which follows. 

The daring band of French and English free- 
booters were very ill provided for the dangerous 
enterprise they had in view. They proposed to 
cross an unknown country without guides and with 
a meagre supply of provisions, fighting as they went 
and conveying their sick and wounded as best they 
could. They had also a number of prisoners whom 
they felt it necessary to take with them, since to 
set them free would be to divulge their weakness 
to their enemies. Nature and circumstance seemed 
to combine against them, yet if they ever wished 
to see their native lands again they must face every 
danger, trusting that some of them, at least, might 
escape to enjoy their spoils. 

After questioning their prisoners, they decided 
to take a route by way of the city of New Segovia, 
which lies north of the lake of Nicaragua, about 
one hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific and 
seventy-five miles from the waters of a river that 
flows, after a long course, into the Atlantic oppo- 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS. 175 

site Cape Gracias-a-Dios. In order to gain further 
information about the route, sixty men were sent 
to explore the neighboring country. These ad- 
vanced till they were near the small city of Chil- 
oteca. Here, worn out by their journey and learn- 
ing that they were in a thickly settled country, 
most of the pioneers decided to return. But 
eighteen of the bolder spirits had the audacity to 
advance on Chiloteca, a place of perhaps a thousand 
inhabitants. 

Into it they rushed with such ferocious yells and 
so terrific a fusillade of shots that the frightened 
inhabitants, taken utterly by surprise, fled in mor- 
tal terror, leaving the place to its captors. These 
quickly seized a number of horses, and made haste 
to retreat on their backs, hotly pursued by the 
Spaniards, who soon discovered to what a handful 
of men they had surrendered their city. 

On receiving the report of their scouts, the free- 
booters determined on the desperate venture. They 
had little to convey except their spoil, which, the 
result of numerous raids, was valued at about one 
million dollars. It chiefly consisted of gold and 
jewels, all heavier valuables, even silver, being left 
in great part behind, as too heavy to carry. The 
spoil was very unequally owned, since the gambling 
which had gone on actively among them had greatly 
varied the distribution of their wealth. To over- 
come the anger and jealousy which this created 
among the poorer, those with much to carry shared 
their portions among their companions, with the 



176 HISTORICAL TALES. 

understanding that, if they reached the Antilles in 
safety, half of it should be returned. As for the 
prisoners, it was decided to take them along, and 
make use of them for carrying the utensils, pro- 
visions, and sick. 

On the 1st of January, 1688, these freebooters, 
two hundred and eighty -five in number, with sixty- 
eight horses, crossed in boats from their island 
refuge to the main-land and began their march. 
Their ships had been first destroyed, their cannon 
cast into the sea, and their bulkier effects burned. 
Divided into four companies, with forty men in 
front as an advance guard, they moved forward 
into a land of adventure and peril. 

It was soon found that the people expected and 
had prepared for their coming. Trees had been 
felled across the roads and efforts made to ob- 
struct all the foot-paths. Provisions had been car- 
ried away, and the dry herbage of the fields was 
set on fire as they advanced, almost suffocating 
them with the heat and smoke. This was done to 
hinder their march until the Spaniards had com- 
pleted a strong intrenchment which was being built 
at a suitable place on the route. 

Ambuscades were also laid for them. On the 
eighth day of their march they fell into one of 
these at Tusignala, where three hundred Spaniards 
lay concealed on the ground and fired into their 
ranks. Though these were dispersed by a fierce 
charge, they followed the freebooters closely, an- 
noying them from the shelter of woods and thickets. 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OP THE FREEBOOTERS. 177 

The next day a still larger ambuscade was laid, 
which, fortunately for the freebooters, was dis- 
covered and dispersed in time, the fleeing Spaniards 
leaving their horses behind. 

Two days later New Segovia was reached. Here 
the buccaneers expected a severe engagement, and 
hoped to gain a supply of provisions. In both 
they were mistaken; the inhabitants had decamped, 
carrying all food with them. Their prisoners, who 
had served them as guides to this point, knew 
nothing of the country beyond, but they succeeded 
in taking a new prisoner who was familiar with the 
further route. 

The country they were passing through was 
mountainous and very difficult. Steep acclivities 
had constantly to be climbed, narrow paths on the 
borders of deep chasms to be traversed, and rapid 
slopes to be descended. The nights were bitterly 
cold, the mornings were darkened by thick fogs, 
and their whole route was attended with danger, 
discomfort, and fatigue. 

New Segovia lay in a valley surrounded on all 
sides by mountains, one of which had to be as- 
cended immediately on leaving the town. The 
next day' s dawn found them on its summit, with a 
valley far below them, in which, to their joy, they 
beheld a large number of animals which they took 
to be oxen. Their joy was dissipated, however, 
when the scouts they sent out came back with the 
information that these animals were horses, sad- 
dled and bridled, and that a series of formidable 
12 



178 HISTORICAL TALES. 

intrenchments had been built in the valley, rising 
like terraces, one above another, and carried to the 
mountains on each side, so as completely to close 
the route. 

There seemed no way to avoid these defences. 
On one side of the mountain flowed a river. A 
small eminence, surrounded by breastworks, com- 
manded the only passage which the freebooters 
could follow. The whole country round was thick 
forest, through whose rock-guarded demesnes not 
the slightest indication of a path could be seen. 
Yet to attack those works in front promised quick 
and utter defeat, and if they wished to avoid de- 
struction they must find some way to outwit their 
foes. It was decided that the forest presented less 
dangers and difficulties than the fortified road, and 
that the only hope of safety lay in a flank movement 
which would lead them to the rear of the enemy. 

Inuring that day active preparations were made 
for the proposed movement. The three hundred 
Spaniards who had ambushed them some days 
before still hung upon their rear. Their horses, 
sick, and prisoners were therefore left in an enclosed 
camp, barricaded by their baggage-vehicles and 
guarded by eighty of their number. As a means 
of impressing the enemy with their numbers and 
alertness they kept up camp-fires all night, repeated 
at intervals the rolls upon the drum, relieved the 
sentinels with a great noise, and varied these signs 
of activity with cries and occasional discharges of 
musketry. 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS. 179 

Meanwhile, as soon as the shades of evening de- 
scended, the remainder of the freebooters, some two 
hundred in number, began their march, following 
the route indicated by a scout they had sent to ex- 
amine the forest. The difficulties of that night jour- 
ney through the dense wood proved very great, 
there being numerous steep rocks to climb and de- 
scend, and this needed to be done with as little noise 
as possible. Daybreak found the adventurers on a 
mountain elevation, from which they could see the 
Spanish intrenchments below them on the left. The 
greatest of their impediments had been surmounted, 
but there were difficulties still to be overcome. 

Fortunately for them a thick mist rose with the 
morning light, which, while it rendered their down- 
ward passage critical, served to conceal them from 
the enemy below. As they came near the works 
the heavy tread of a patrol guided them in their 
course, and the morning prayers of the Spaniards 
were of still more advantage in indicating their 
distance and position. The freebooting band had 
reached the rear of the hostile army, composed of 
five hundred men, who were so taken by surprise 
on seeing their ferocious enemy rushing upon them 
with shouts and volleys, from this unlooked-for 
quarter, that they fled without an attempt at de- 
fence. 

The other Spaniards behaved more courageously, 
but the appearance of the buccaneers within the 
works they had so toilsomely prepared robbed them 
of spirit, and after an hour' s fight they, too, broke 



180 HISTORICAL TALES. 

and fled. The trees they had felled to obstruct the 
road now contributed to their utter defeat, and 
they were cut down in multitudes, with scarce an 
attempt at resistance. We can scarcely credit the 
testimony of the freebooters, however, that their 
sole losses were one killed and two wounded. The 
success of the advance party was equalled by that 
of the guard of armed men left in the camp, who, 
after some negotiations with the troop of Spaniards 
in their rear, made a sudden charge upon them and 
dispersed all who were not cut down. 

That the freebooters were as much surprised as 
gratified by the signal success of their strategem 
need scarcely be said. One of the panics which 
are apt to follow a surprise in war had saved them 
from threatened annihilation. They learned, how- 
ever, the disquieting fact that six miles farther on 
was another strong intrenchment which could not 
be avoided, the country permitting no choice of 
roads. In their situation there was nothing to do 
but to advance and dare the worst, and fortunately 
for them their remarkable success spread such ter- 
ror before it that, when they appeared before these 
new works, the Spaniards made no attack, but 
remained quietly behind their breastworks while 
their dreaded foes marched past. 

The seventeenth day of their march carried them 
to the banks of the river towards which their route 
had been laid. This was the Magdalena, a stream 
which rises in the mountains near !N"ew Segovia 
and flows through a difficult rock channel, with 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS. 181 

numerous cascades, three of them amounting to 
cataracts, finally reaching- the Caribbean Sea after 
a course of several hundred miles. 

How they were to descend this mountain torrent 
was the question which now offered itself to them. 
It presented a more attractive route of travel than 
the one so far pursued over the mountains, but was 
marked by difficulties of a formidable character. 
These were overcome by the freebooters in an ex- 
traordinary manner, one almost or quite without 
parallel in the annals of travel. The expedient they 
adopted was certainly of curious interest. 

Before them was a large and rapid river, its cur- 
rent impeded by a multitude of rocks and broken 
by rapids and cascades. They were destitute of 
ropes or tools suitable for boat-building, and any 
ordinary kind of boats would have been of no use 
to them in such a stream. It occurred to them 
that what they needed to navigate a river of this 
character was something of the nature of large 
baskets or tuns, in which they might float enclosed 
to their waists, while keeping themselves from con- 
tact with the rocks by the aid of poles. 

They had no models for such floating contri- 
vances, and were obliged to invent them. Near 
the river was an extensive forest, and this supplied 
them abundantly with young trees, of light wood. 
These they cut down, stripped off their bark, col- 
lected them by fives, and, lacking ropes, fastened 
them together with lianas and a tenacious kind of 
gum which the forest provided. A large number 



182 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of small, frail, basket-like contrivances were thus 
made, each large enough to carry two men, with 
whom they would sink in the water as deep as the 
waist. Piperies, Lussan called them, but his de- 
scription does not make it clear just what they 
were like. 

While thus engaged, the freebooters killed part 
of their horses, and salted their flesh for food, all 
the work being done with the energy and activity 
necessary in their critical situation. During it 
they were not molested by the Spaniards, but no 
one could tell how soon they might be. "When all 
was ready they restored their prisoners to the lib- 
erty of which they had long been deprived, and 
entered upon one of the most perilous examples of 
navigation that can well be imagined. 

Launched in their piperies, the freebooters found 
themselves tossed about by the impetuous current, 
and speedily covered with spray. The lightness of 
their floating baskets kept them from sinking, but 
the energetic efforts they were obliged to make to 
keep from being thrown out or dashed on the rocks 
soon exhausted them. A short experience taught 
them the necessity of fastening themselves in the 
piperies, so that their hands might be free to keep 
them from being hurled on the rocks. Occasionally 
their frail crafts were overturned or buried under 
the waves in the swift rapids, and the inmates were 
either drowned or escaped by abandoning the treas- 
ures which weighed them down. 

Whatever else may be said of this method of 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS. 183 

navigation, it proved a rapid one, the frail barks 
being hurried on at an impetuous speed. Each of 
the cataracts was preceded by a basin of still water, 
and here it became necessary to swim to the shore 
and descend the rocks to the bottom of the fall. 
Some who remained behind threw the piperies into 
the stream to be carried over the liquid precipice, 
and recovered by swimming out to meet them, or 
replaced by new ones when lost. 

After three days of this singular navigation it 
was decided, in view of the fact that the piperies 
were often dashed together to their mutual injury, 
to separate and keep at a distance from each other, 
those who went first marking out by small flags 
where it was necessary to land. During their 
progress the question of food again became promi- 
nent, the salted horsemeat they had brought with 
them being spoiled by its frequent wetting. Game 
was plentiful, but their powder was all spoiled, and 
the only food to be found was the fruit of the 
banana-tree, which grew abundantly on the banks. 

The cupidity of the freebooters was not abated by 
the danger of their situation. They made the most 
earnest endeavors to preserve their spoil, and some 
of the poorer ones even resorted to murder to 
gain the wealth of their richer comrades. The 
dispersion of the flotilla favored this, and six con- 
spiring Frenchmen hid behind the rocks and at- 
tacked and killed five Englishmen who were known 
to possess much treasure. Eobbing the bodies, they 
took to the stream again, leaving the bloody corpses 



184 HISTORICAL TALES. 

on the bank. Those who saw them had no time to 
think of avenging them. 

Gradually the river grew wider and deeper and 
its course less impetuous. The cascades were all 
passed, but the stream was obstructed by floating 
or anchored tree-trunks, by which many of the pi- 
peries were overturned and their occupants drowned. 
To avoid this danger the piperies were now aban- 
doned and the freebooters divided themselves into 
detachments and began to build large canoes from 
the forest trees. Four of these, carrying one hun- 
dred and thirty men, were soon ready and their 
builders again took to the stream. Of the fate of 
the others, who remained behind, no further ac- 
count is given by the historian of this adventure. 

On the 9th of March, sixty days after their de- 
parture from the Pacific, the adventurers reached 
the river' s mouth, having completed their remark- 
able feat of crossing the continent in the face of the 
most threatening perils from man and nature. But 
fortune only partly favored them, for many had 
lost all the wealth which they had gathered in their 
career of piracy, their very clothes hanging in rags 
about their limbs. Some, indeed, had been more 
fortunate or more adroit in their singular naviga- 
tion, but, as a whole, they were a woe-begone and 
miserable party when, a few days afterwards, they 
reached the isle of Perlas. Here were some friendly 
vessels, on which they embarked, and near the end 
of April they reached the West Indies, with the 
little that remained of their plunder 



THE WONDERFUL MARCH OF THE FREEBOOTERS. 185 

Such was the end of this remarkable achieve- 
ment, one which for boldness, intrepidity, and 
skill in expedients has few to rival it in the annals 
of history, and which, if performed by men of 
note, instead of by an obscure band of robbers, 
would have won for them a high meed of fame. 



THE CRUELTY OF THE SPAN- 
IARDS TO THE INDIANS. 

Never were a people more terribly treated than 
the natives of America under the Spanish adven- 
turers. The often told story that the Indians of 
Hispaniola were annihilated in one generation after 
the settlement of that island is sufficient evidence 
of the frightfully inhuman treatment to which they 
were subjected. The laws of Spain provided for 
justice and humanity in the dealings with the In- 
dians, but the settlers, thousands of miles away, 
paid no attention to these laws, and the red men 
were almost everywhere reduced to slavery, or 
where free and given political rights, were looked 
upon as far inferior to the whites. In every district 
Spain placed an official called the ' ' Protector of the 
Indians, ' ' but it does not appear that they were 
much the better off for their < ' Protectors. " It is 
our purpose here to say something about the cruel 
treatment of the natives in South America. 

The Spanish settlers had three terms which ap- 
plied to their dealings with the Indians, the encomi- 
endo, the mitad, and the repartimiento, each indi- 
cating a form of injustice. The conquerors divided 
the country between them, and the encomiendos were 
rights granted them to hold the Indians for a num- 
ber of years as workers in their fields or their 
186 



CRUELTY OF THE SPANIARDS TO THE INDIANS. 187 

mines. Under these grants, the natives were con- 
verted into beasts of burden, and forced to do the 
hardest work without the least compensation. They 
were obliged to labor all day long under the burning 
tropical sun, to dive into the sea in search of pearls 
for their masters, or to toil buried from the light 
of day in the depths of the mines. It is not sur- 
prising that these miserable slaves, accustomed to a 
life of indolence and ease, perished as if exposed to 
a killing plague. 

The mitad was a law formed for their protection, 
but it soon became one of the worst of the abuses. 
Under it every man from the age of eighteen to 
fifty was required to render bodily service, the na- 
tives of each mining colony of South America being 
divided into seven sections, each of which had to 
work six months in the mines. Every mine-owner 
could demand the number of Indians he needed. 
In Peru alone fourteen hundred mines were worked, 
and labor of this kind was in constant demand. 

As to the kind of labor they had to do, we need 
only say that when any man was called upon to 
work in the mines he looked upon it as a sentence 
of death. Before going he gave all his possessions 
to his relatives, and they went through the funeral 
service, as if he were already dead. A mass was said 
for him at the church, which the priests took care 
that he should pay for, and he had to take an oath 
of fidelity to the king. Then he was sprinkled with 
holy water and sent away to his deadly service. 
Deadly we may well call it, for it is said that 



188 HISTORICAL TALES. 

scarcely a fifth part of these miners lived through 
their term of labor. 

Lowered from the light of the sun into the deep 
underground shafts and galleries, and passing from 
the pure air of heaven to a pestilential atmosphere, 
excessive labor and bad food soon robbed them of 
strength and often of life. If they survived this, 
a species of asthma usually carried them off during 
the year. We may judge of the results from the 
calculation that the mitad in Peru alone had eight 
million victims. 

The law limited the mitad to those living within 
thirty miles of a mine, but laborers were often 
brought by force from hundreds of miles away. As 
for the small wages paid them, the masters took 
part of it from them in payment for their food, and 
usually got the remainder by giving credit for 
clothes or liquor or in other ways. In fact, if by 
good fortune the Indian had not lost his life at the 
end of his term of service, he might be brought 
into debt which he could not pay, and thus held a 
slave for life. 

The repartimiento was another protective law, 
which also became a means of oppression. Under 
it the district officials were required to supply all 
things needed by the Indians, there being, when the 
law was passed, no pedlers or travelling dealers. 
This privilege was quickly and shamelessly abused, 
the natives being sold poor clothing, spoiled grain, 
sour wine, and other inferior supplies, often at three 
or four times their value when of good quality. 



CRUELTY OF THE SPANIARDS TO THE INDIANS. 189 

They were even made to buy things at high prices 
which were of no possible use to them, such as 
silk stockings for men who went barefoot, and 
razors for those who had scarcely any beard to 
shave. One corregidor bought a box of spectacles 
from a trader, and made the natives buy these at his 
own price, to wear when they went to mass, with- 
out regard to the fact that they were utterly useless 
to them. 

The oppression of the natives was not confined to 
the laity, but the clergy were often as unjust. They 
forced them to pay not only the tithes, but ex- 
travagant prices for every church service, forty 
reals being charged for a baptism, twenty for a 
marriage certificate, thirty-two for a burial, etc. 
Such sums as these, which fairly beggared the 
poor Indians, enabled the clergy to build costly 
churches and mission houses and to keep up abun- 
dant revenues. 

These general statements very faintly picture the 
actual state to which the Indians were reduced. 
This may be better shown by some instances of 
their sufferings. The Timebos Indians, for exam- 
ple, of the province of Yelez, New Grenada, were 
reduced to such extreme misery by the embezzle- 
ment of the funds, that whole families flung them- 
selves from the top of a rock twelve hundred feet 
high into the river below. One night, in order to 
escape from the cruelty of the colonists, the whole 
tribes of the Agatoas and Cocomes killed them- 
selves, preferring death to the horrors of Spanish 



190 HISTORICAL TALES. 

rule. Many Indians strangled themselves when in 
peril of being enslaved by the Spaniards, feeling that 
a quick death was better than a slow one under the 
torture of incessant toil. 

In one instance, when a party of hopeless natives 
had come together with the intention of killing 
themselves, an intendant came to them with a rope 
in his hand, and told them that if they did not 
give up their purpose he would hang himself with 
them. This threat filled them with such horror at 
the prospect of meeting a Spaniard in the spirit 
world, that they fled from the spot, preferring life 
with all its terrors to such a companion. 

As may well be imagined, the natives did not 
all yield resistlessly to their tyrants. Thus, in ex- 
asperation at the quantity of gold-dust which they 
were forced to pay as tribute, the people of Aeon- 
calm, in the province of Canas, seized the brutal 
Spanish collector one day, and gave him melted gold 
to drink, ' ' to satisfy in this way his insatiable thirst 
for gold. ' ' 

In December, 1767, the descendants of the two 
tribes which had owned the mining valley of Cara- 
vaya descended on the white inhabitants in re- 
venge for a usurpation of their lands which had 
taken place more than two centuries before. They 
settled the question of ownership by burning the 
city and killing all the inhabitants with arrows and 
clubs. "When news of this was received by the 
viceroy, Don Antonio Amat, he swore on a piece 
of the true cross to kill all the savages in Peru. 



CRUELTY OP THE SPANIARDS TO THE INDIANS. 191 

He was prevented from carrying out this threat 
only by the prayers of the actress Mariquita Gal- 
legas, whom he loved, and who convinced him 
that it was his duty as a Christian to convert them 
to the religion of Christ rather than to massacre 
them. 

In 1780 there began a memorable insurrection of 
the persecuted natives. It was especially notable 
as being led by a direct descendant of the Inca 
Tupac-Amaru, who had been beheaded by the Span- 
iards in 1562. This noble Indian, the last of the 
Incas, had been well educated by the Jesuits in 
Cuzco, and became the cacique of Tungasac. His 
virtues were such as to gain him the respect and 
esteem of all the Peruvian Indians, who venerated 
him also as the lineal descendant of their ancient 
emperors. 

One day this cacique, exasperated by the rapacity 
of the corregidor of Tuita, who had laid three reparti- 
mientos on the Indians in a single year, seized the 
tyrannical wretch and strangled him with his own 
hands. Then, taking the name of his ancestor, Tu- 
pac-Amaru, he proclaimed himself the chief of all 
those who were in rebellion against the Spaniards. 

His error seems to have been in not fraternizing 
with the Creoles, or white natives of the country, 
who hated the Spaniards as bitterly as the Indians 
themselves. On the contrary he treated these as 
enemies also, and thus greatly augmented the num- 
ber of his foes. The Indians, their memories of 
their ancient freedom aroused by his call, joined his 



192 HISTORICAL TALES. 

ranks in enthusiastic numbers and won several 
victories over the whites, the whole of Upper Peru 
breaking out in insurrection. Lacking fire-arms as 
they did, they kept up the struggle for a year, the 
outbreak being brought to an end at last by treach- 
ery instead of arms. Betrayed by a cacique to 
whom the Spaniards promised a colonel's com- 
mission, — a promise they did not keep, — the Inca 
was taken prisoner by his enemies, and conducted to 
Cuzco, the ancient capital of his ancestors. Here 
he was tried and condemned to death, and executed 
with a frightful excess of cruelty that filled with 
horror all the civilized world, when the terrible tale 
became known. 

Conducted to the place of execution, his wife and 
children, and his brother-in-law, Bastidas, were 
brought before him, their tongues cut out, and then 
put to death by the Spanish method of strangling 
before his eyes. His little son was left alive to 
witness his death. This was one in which the 
most brutal tortures of mediaeval times seemed re- 
vived. His tongue being torn out, his limbs were 
tied to four horses, which were driven in different di- 
rections with the purpose of tearing him limb from 
limb. The horses proved unable to do this, and he 
remained suspended in agony, until one of the more 
merciful of the Spaniards ended his torture by 
cutting off his head. During this revolting scene 
the little son of the victim gave vent to a terrible 
scream of agony, the memory of which haunted 
many of the executioners to their death. 



CRUELTY OF THE SPANIARDS TO THE INDIANS. 193 

The legs and arms of the victim were sent to the 
rebellious towns, his body was burned to ashes, his 
house was razed, his property confiscated, and his 
family declared infamous forever. One of his 
brothers was sent to Spain and condemned to the 
galleys, in which he remained for thirty years. 
Such were the means taken by the Spaniards to 
overcome the love of liberty in the natives of Peru. 

As for the natives themselves, what few privileges 
they had retained were taken from them, their 
meetings and festivals were forbidden, and for any 
one to assume the name of Inca was declared crim- 
inal. These severe measures were thought sufficient 
to intimidate the Indians, but they only exasperated 
them, and they took a terrible revenge. Andres, a 
cousin of Amaru, who had escaped capture, and 
another chief named Catari, led them in a cam- 
paign of revenge in which they fought with the 
fury of despair. The lives of five hundred Span- 
iards, it is said, paid the penalty for each of the 
victims of that dread execution in Cuzco. 

Andres besieged the city of Sorata, in which all 
the white families of the vicinity had taken refuge 
with their treasures. The artillery of the fortifica- 
tions seemed an invulnerable defence against the 
poorly armed besiegers, but Andres succeeded in 
making a breach by turning the mountain streams 
against the walls. Once within, the exasperated 
Indians took a terrible revenge, a single priest 
being, as we are told, the sole survivor of the 
twenty thousand inhabitants. In the end the Span- 
13 



194 HISTORICAL TALES. 

iards put down the insurrection by treachery and 
cunning, seized the chiefs, and sent Andres to Ceuta, 
in Spain, where he remained in prison till 1820. 

"We shall only say in addition that the Portuguese 
of Brazil treated the natives of that land with a 
cruelty little less than that shown by the Spaniards, 
sending out hunting expeditions to bring in Indians 
to serve as slaves. Those who opposed them were 
shot down without mercy, and it is said that, at 
the beginning of the nineteenth century, peasants 
infected with the virus of smallpox were sent to the 
Botocudos, as a convenient means of getting rid of 
that hostile tribe. As a result of all this, the 
greater part of the tribes of Brazil completely dis- 
appeared. The natives of South America obtained 
justice and honorable treatment only after the peo- 
ple of that country had won their liberty. 



CUDJOE, THE NEGRO CHIEF, 
AND THE MAROONS OF JA- 
MAICA. 

When the English conquered the island of Ja- 
maica and drove the Spaniards out of it, they failed 
to conquer its sable inhabitants, negroes who had 
been slaves to the Spaniards, but who now fought 
for and maintained their freedom. Such were the 
Maroons, or mountain-dwelling fugitives of Jamaica, 
whose story is well worth telling. 

First we must say something about the history 
of this island, and how it came into English hands. 
It was long held by the Spaniards, being discovered 
by Columbus in his second voyage, in 1494. In 
his last voyage he had a dismal experience there. 
With his vessels battered and ready to sink, after 
running through a severe wind storm, he put into 
the harbor of Porto Bueno, in northern Jamaica. 
He afterwards left this for a small bay, still known 
after him as Don Christopher' s Cove, and here, at- 
tacked by the warlike natives, and unable to put to 
sea, he was kept captive in his shattered hulks for 
a whole year. 

The Indians refused him food, and the tradition 
goes that he got this at length by a skilful artifice. 
Knowing that a total eclipse of the moon would 
soon take place, he sent word to the dusky chief 

195 



196 HISTORICAL TALES. 

that the lights in the sky were under his control, 
and if they did not give him supplies he would put 
out the light of the moon and never let it shine 
again on their island. The Indians laughed with 
scorn at this threat, but when they saw the moon 
gradually losing its light and fading into darkness, 
they fell into a panic, and begged him to let it shine 
again, promising to bring him all the food he wanted. 
At this the admiral feigned to relent, and after re- 
tiring for a time to his cabin, came forth and told 
them that he would consent to bring back the lost 
moonlight. After that the Indians saw that the 
crew had abundance of food. The admiral and his 
crew were finally rescued by an expedition sent from 
Hispaniola. 

Jamaica, like Cuba and Hayti, has the honor of 
keeping its old Indian name, signifying a land of 
springs, or of woods and waters. It is a land of 
mountains also ; if it had not been we would have 
had no story to tell, for these mountains were the 
haunts and the strongholds of the Maroons. The 
island was not settled till 1523, twenty years after 
the detention of Columbus on its shores. Many 
years after that we find its Spanish settlers op- 
pressing all the English that fell into their hands. 
This was the case, in fact, all through the West 
Indies, English seamen being put in the stocks, sent 
to the galleys, or murdered outright. 

It took the sturdy directness of Oliver Cromwell 
to put an end to these outrages. He sent word to 
the Spanish minister that there must be a stop put 



CUDJOE AND THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA. 197 

to the practices of the Inquisition and to the re- 
striction of free navigation in the West Indies. 
The minister replied, that to ask for these two 
things was ' ' to ask for his master' s two eyes, ' ' and 
that no such thing could be allowed. Cromwell' s 
reply was to the point : 

c ' I know of no title that the Spaniards hath but 
by force, which by the same title may be repelled. 
And as to the first discovery — to me it seems as lit- 
tle reason that the sailing of a Spanish ship upon 
the coast of India should entitle the king of Spain 
to that country as the sailing of an Indian or Eng- 
lish ship upon the coast of Spain should entitle 
either the Indians or the English to the domin- 
ion thereof. The Spaniards have contravented the 
Treaty of 1630. War must needs be justifiable 
when peace is not allowable. ' ' 

This reply was certainly one marked by sound 
logic and good sense. It was the rule of force, not 
of right, that lay behind all claims to dominion in 
America, and this rule could be set aside by superior 
force. So Cromwell sent out a great fleet under 
command of Admiral Penn, — father of William 
Penn, the settler of Pennsylvania, — with a land 
force commanded by General Venables. The first 
attempt was made upon Hispaniola. Failing here, 
the fleet sailed to Jamaica, where the Spaniards 
surrendered on the 11th of May, 1655. They tried 
to take it back again shortly before Cromwell's 
death, but did not succeed, and Jamaica has re- 
mained an English island from that day to this. 



198 HISTORICAL TALES, 

This is about all we need say by way of preface, 
except to remark that many settlers were sent to 
Jamaica, and the island soon became well peopled 
and prosperous, Port Eoyal, its principal harbor, 
coming to be the liveliest city in the West Indies. 
It was known as the wickedest city as well as the 
richest, and when an earthquake came in 1692, and 
Port Eoyal, with the sandy slope on which it was 
built, slipped into the sea with all its dwellings, 
warehouses and wealth, and numbers of its people, 
the disaster was looked upon by many as a judg- 
ment from heaven. There is one thing more worth 
mention, which is that Morgan, the buccaneer, 
whose deeds of shameful cruelty at Panama we 
have described, became afterwards deputy governor 
of Jamaica, as Sir Henry Morgan, which title was 
given him by King Charles I. It is not easy to 
know why this was done, unless it be true, as was 
then said, that Charles shared in the spoils of his 
bloody deeds of piracy. However that be, Mor- 
gan, as governor, turned hotly upon his former as- 
sociates, and hunted down the buccaneers without 
mercy, hanging and shooting all he could lay hands 
on, until he fairly put an end to the trade which 
had made him rich. 

Let us come now to the story of the Maroons, 
that nest of fugitives who made things hot enough 
for the English in Jamaica for many years. When 
Cromwell' s soldiers took possession of Jamaica few 
or none of those warlike Indians, who had given 
Columbus so much trouble, were left. In their 



CUD JOE AND THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA. 199 

place were about two thousand negro slaves, and 
these fled to the mountains, as the Indians had done 
before them. There they remained in freedom, 
though the English did their best to coax them to 
come down and enjoy the blessings of slavery again, 
and though they tried their utmost to drive them 
down from the cliffs by means of soldiers and guns. 
In spite of all the whites could do, the negroes, 
''Maroons," as they were called, long preserved 
their liberty. 

In 1663 the British, finding that they could not 
master the warlike fugitives by force, offered them 
a full pardon, with liberty and twenty acres of land 
apiece, if they would yield. But the negroes, who 
were masters of the whole mountainous interior, 
where thousands could live in plenty, chose to stay 
where they were and not to trust to the slippery 
faith of the white man. And so it went on until 
after 1730, when the depredations of the negroes 
upon the settlements became so annoying that two 
regiments of British regulars and all the militia of 
the island were sent into the mountains to put them 
down. As it proved, the negroes still held their 
own, not one of them being taken prisoner, and 
very few of them killed. They were decidedly 
masters of the situation. 

At this time the chief of the Maroons, Cudjoe by 
name, was a dusky dwarf, sable, ugly, and uncouth, 
but shrewd and wary, and fully capable of dis- 
counting all the wiles of his enemies. No Chris- 
tian he, but a full Pagan, worshipping, with his 



200 HISTORICAL TALES. 

followers, the African gods of Obeah, or the deities 
of the wizards and sorcerers. His lurking -place, in 
the defiles of the John Crow Mountains, was named 
Nanny Town, after his wife. Here two mountain 
streams plunged over a rock nine hundred feet high 
into a romantic gorge, where their waters met in a 
seething caldron called ' ' Nanny' s Pot. ' ' Into this, 
as the negroes believed, the black witch Nanny could, 
by her sorcery, cast the white soldiers who pursued 
them. As for old Cudjoe himself, the English de- 
clared that he must be in league with the devil, 
whom he looked enough alike to be his brother. 
And they were not without warrant for this belief, 
for he held his own against them for nine long 
years, at the end of which the Maroons were more 
numerous than at the beginning, since those who 
were killed were more than made up by fresh ac- 
cessions of runaway slaves. 

It is certain that the British soldiers were no 
match for Cudjoe the dwarf. Retreating warily be- 
fore them, he drew them into many an ambush in 
the wild defiles of the mountains, where they were 
cut down like sheep, the waters of the ' ' Pot' ' being 
often reddened with their blood. From many of 
the expeditions sent against him only a few weary 
and wounded survivors returned, and it became 
difficult to induce the soldiers to venture into that 
den of death. 

At length a British officer succeeded in dragging 
two mountain howitzers up the cliffs to a position 
from which Nanny Town, the inaccessible Maroon 



CUD JOE AND THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA. 201 

stronghold, could be shelled. When the shells, 
hurled from the distant cannon, began to burst 
among them, the Maroons were at first so filled 
with terror that some of them threw themselves 
over the cliffs, but the bulk of them merely scat- 
tered and let the howitzers do their work among 
empty walls. 

Cudjoe was astonished at the bursting shells, but 
he was too old a bird to be frightened. "Dis a 
new way de buckra man got to fight," he said. 
1 ' He fire big ball arter you, and den de big ball fire 
little ones arter you. Dat' s berry cunnin' , but ole 
Cudjoe know somethin' better un dat." 

Leading his men through the woods with the 
stealthy tread and noiseless skill of the American 
Indians, the dwarf and his Maroons suddenly burst 
upon the unwary soldiers from the rear while they 
were busy about their guns, delivering a telling 
volley and then rushing upon them with blade and 
axe. Few of the whites escaped this ferocious 
onset, and the shell-delivering howitzers remained 
in Cudjoe' s hands. 

Despairing of conquering the forest-born Ma- 
roons by the arts of civilized warfare, the British 
were driven to try a new method. In 1737 they 
brought from the Mosquito coast a number of In- 
dians, who were fully the equal of the negroes in 
bush fighting. These were launched upon the 
track of the Maroons and soon ran them down in 
their mountain fastnesses. From Nanny Town the 
seat of war shifted to another quarter of the island, 



202 HISTORICAL TALES. 

but at length the Maroons, finding their new foes 
fully their match in their own methods, consented 
to sign a treaty of peace with the whites, though 
only on the terms that they should retain their full 
freedom. 

The treaty was made in 1738 at Trelawney Town, 
the Maroons being represented by Captains Cudjoe, 
Accompong, Johnny, Cuffee, and Quaco, and a 
number of their followers, ' ' who have been in a 
state of war and hostility for several years past 
against our sovereign lord the king and the inhabi- 
tants of this island. ' ' 

By the terms of the treaty the Maroons were to 
retain their liberty forever, to be granted a large 
tract of land in the mountains, and to enjoy full 
freedom of trade with the whites. On their part 
they agreed to keep peace with the whites, to 
return all runaway slaves who should come among 
them, and to aid the whites in putting down the 
rebellion and in fighting any foreign invader. 

In 1760 their promise to aid the whites against 
local outbreaks was put to the test when the fierce 
Koromantyn negroes broke out in rebellion and 
committed fearful atrocities. A party of Maroons 
joined the whites and seemed very zealous in their 
cause, ranging the woods and bringing in a large 
number of ears, which they said they had cut from 
the heads of rebels killed by them. It afterwards 
was found that the ears had been obtained from the 
negroes who had been slain by the troops and left 
where they fell. 



CUDJOE AND THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA. 203 

The Maroons remained unmolested until 1795, 
not without outbreaks on their part and depreda- 
tions on the settlements. In the year named two of 
them were caught stealing pigs, and were sent to 
the workhouse and given thirty-nine lashes on the 
bare back. When set free they went home in a 
fury, and told a pitiful tale of the disgrace they 
had suffered, being whipped by the black driver of 
the workhouse in the presence of felon slaves. 
The story roused the blood of all their fellows, who 
felt that they had been outraged by this insult to 
two of their kindred, and a revolt broke out that 
spread rapidly throughout the mountains. 

The whites were in a quandary. To attempt to 
put down the rebels by force of arms might lead to 
the sanguinary results of sixty years before. But 
it was remembered that in the former war the use 
of dogs had proved very advantageous, so agents 
were now sent to Cuba to purchase a pack of 
bloodhounds. Thus the methods employed by the 
Spaniards against the Indians two centuries before 
were once more brought into use. One hundred 
hounds were bought and with them came forty 
Cuban huntsmen, mostly mulattoes. As it proved, 
the very news of the coming of the hounds had 
the desired effect, the Maroons being apparently 
much more afraid of these ferocious dogs than of 
trained soldiers. At any rate, they immediately 
sued for peace, and, as an old historian tells us, 
" It is pleasing to observe that not a drop of blood 
was spilt after the dogs arrived in the island." 



204 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Peace was made within a week, and in the next 
year the chief offenders were sent to Halifax, Nova 
Scotia, and put at work on the fortifications. They 
were afterwards sent to Liberia. 

From that time forward there was no trouble 
with the Maroons. Their descendants still dwell 
in the island as a separate people. In 1865 there 
was an outbreak among the free blacks, slavery 
having been abolished thirty years before. The 
Maroons were called upon to help the troops put 
down this revolt. They responded cheerfully and 
rendered useful aid in the brief conflict. When 
it was over the black warriors were invited to 
Kingston, the capital, where the whites of that city 
had their first sight of the redoubtable Maroons. 
Black and brawny, they had the dignified carriage 
of men who had always been free and independent, 
while some of them wore with pride silver medals 
which their ancestors had been given for former aid 
to the whites. Once a terror to Jamaica, the Ma- 
roons are now among its most trusty inhabitants. 



TOUSSAINT HOUVERTURE AND 
THE REVOLUTION IN HAYTI 

The people of Europe have not stood alone in 
settling and ruling America, for the blacks of 
Africa, brought to the New World as slaves, have 
made themselves masters of one of the largest and 
most fertile islands of the West Indies, that at- 
tractive gem of the tropics which, under the name 
of Hispaniola, was the pioneer among Spanish 
dominions on American soil. 

Hispaniola has had a strange and cruel history. 
The Spaniards enslaved its original inhabitants and 
treated them so ruthlessly that they were soon an- 
nihilated. Then the island was filled with negro 
slaves. About 1630 the buccaneers, or hunters of 
wild bulls, made it their haunt, and as these were 
mostly French, the western part of the island was 
ceded to France in 1697. During the century that 
followed Africans were brought over in multitudes, 
until there were nearly half a million blacks in 
Hayti, — the Indian name of the island, — while 
there were less than forty thousand whites and 
thirty thousand mulattoes, the latter being neither 
citizens nor slaves. These facts are given as a 
necessary introduction to the story we are about to 
tell. 

It was the white revolution in France that brought 

205 



206 HISTORICAL TALES. 

about the black revolution in Hayti. In 1789 the 
States-General met in France and overturned the 
ancient system of oppression in that land. Liberty 
for all was the tocsin of its members, and it was 
proclaimed that not only the whites of France and 
her colonies, but the blacks also, were entitled to 
freedom and a voice in the government. The news 
of this decree created a ferment of passion in 
Hayti. The white planters of the island, who had 
long controlled everything, burst into fury, for- 
swore all allegiance to France, and trampled the 
national flao; under foot in their rage. 

But they had others than the French Assembly 
to deal with. The mulattoes, or free people of 
color, rose in arms for the rights of which they 
had been deprived. They were soon put down, but 
in the following year (1791) a much more terrible 
outbreak took place, that of the slaves. There 
followed a reign of terror more frightful than that 
of France. The revolt began on the night of Au- 
gust 21, on the plantation of Noe, near Cape Hay- 
tien. The long-oppressed and savage blacks mer- 
cilessly killed all the whites who fell into their 
hands. Down from the mountains they poured on 
every side, their routes marked by blood and devas- 
tation. Hills and plains were swept with fire and 
sword, atrocities of the most horrible kinds were 
committed, and nearly all the residents on the 
plantations, more than two thousand in number, 
were brutally slaughtered, while a thousand sugar 
and coffee estates were swept by fire. 



l'ouvertttre and the revolution in hayti. 207 

In the first revolution the mulattoes aided the 
whites of the cities to repel the blacks, but later, 
believing themselves betrayed by the whites, they 
joined the blacks, and the revolt became a war of 
extermination. It did not end until the negroes be- 
came masters of all the country districts, and gained 
a control of the mountainous interior of the island 
which, except for a brief interval, they have ever 
since retained. 

This success was in great part due to the famous 
leader of the blacks, the renowned Toussaint L' Ou- 
verture, a man who proved himself one of the 



P 



greatest and noblest of his race. Born in Hayti, 
of negro parents, he was descended from an African 
prince, and, slave though he was in condition, had 
himself the soul of a prince. He taught himself to 
read and write, and also something of mathematics 
and of Latin, and was taken from the fields to be- 
come coachman for the overseer of the estate of 
his master, the Count de Breda. 

When the negro revolt began, and the furious 
blacks were seeking victims on all sides, Toussaint 
concealed the overseer and his family in the forest, 
took them food at the risk of his own life, and 
finally led them to the coast, where they took ship 
for the United States. 

While he was thus engaged, the negroes, led by a 
gigantic black named Bouckman, and subsequently 
by three others, were continuing their course of 
butchery and devastation. Toussaint joined them 
after the escape of the overseer, and quickly gained 



208 HISTORICAL TALES. 

an influence over them, largely from his knowledge 
of medicinal plants and a degree of skill in surgery. 
This influence enabled him to put himself at their 
head and to mitigate the ferocity of their actions. 
His ascendency was due not only to his knowledge, 
but also to his valor, and from his courage in open- 
ing a breach in the ranks of the enemy he became 
known as L' Ouverture, or the opener. 

Under their new leader the revolted slaves held 
their own against their enemies, declaring in favor 
of the king, Louis XIV., and against the revolu- 
tionists. On the other hand, the English came to 
the aid of the whites, and the island was thrown 
into a state of horrible confusion, increased by the 
interference of the Spaniards, who held the eastern 
section of the island. 

In 1794, after the Convention in Paris had is- 
sued a decree demanding the liberation of the slaves, 
Toussaint and his followers joined the revolutionary 
cause, and aided the French general Laveaux to 
expel the British and Spanish invaders. In this 
campaign he won a number of victories, and 
showed such military skill and ability as to prove 
him a leader of the highest qualities. Beard says 
of him, l ' His energy and his prowess made him 
the idol of his troops. ... In his deeds and war- 
like achievements he equalled the great captains of 
ancient and modern times. ' ' 

One example of the risks which he ran in battle 
occurred in his efforts to put down an insurrection 
of the mulattoes. In this contest he fell into an 



L'oUVERTtTRE AND THE REVOLUTION IN HAYTI. 209 

ambush in the mountains near Port de Paix, a 
shower of bullets sweeping his ranks. His private 
physician fell dead by his side and a plume of 
feathers in his hat was shot away, but he remained 
unharmed. The same was the case soon after 
when, in a narrow pass, his coachman was shot 
down. The negro leader seemed, like Napoleon, to 
bear a charmed life. 

Declaring himself lieutenant-general of the col- 
ony, he wrote to the Directory in Paris, guaran- 
teeing to be responsible for the orderly behavior of 
the blacks and their good will to France. He sent 
at the same time his two elder sons to Paris to be 
educated, making them practically hostages for his 
honor and good faith. 

In 1798 the war, which had lasted for years, came 
to an end, the British being expelled from the island 
and the rebellious mulattoes put down. Peace pre- 
vailed, and the negro conqueror now devoted him- 
self to the complete pacification of the people. 
Agriculture was encouraged, the churches were 
reopened, schools were established, and law and 
justice were made equal for all. At the same time 
the army was kej)t in excellent training and a rigid 
discipline exacted. 

As is usual in such cases, there were abundant 
applications among the negroes for official positions, 
and Toussaint was sorely put to it to dispose of 
these ignorant aspirers after high places without 
giving offence. He seems, however, to have been 
well versed in political management, and is said 
14 



210 HISTORICAL TALES. 

to have disposed of one unlearned applicant for a 
judicial position with the words, "Ah, yes; you 
would make an excellent magistrate. Of course 
you understand Latin. — ~No? — Why, that is very 
unfortunate, for you know that Latin is absolutely 
necessary. ' ' 

There is another evidence of his wisdom in deal- 
ing with his people that is worth repeating. As 
has been said, when the revolution began Hayti 
had about half a million of blacks to seventy thou- 
sand whites and mulattoes. Toussaint adopted an 
original method of making the force of this fact 
evident to his followers. He would fill a glass with 
black grains of corn and throw upon them a few 
grains of white. ' ' You are the black grains, ' ' he 
would say ; ' ' your enemies are the white. ' ' Then 
he would shake the glass. ' ' Where are the white 
grains now ? You see they have disappeared. ' ' 

The authorities in France could not but recognize 
the ability and the moderation of the black leader, 
and in 1796 he was appointed commander-in-chief 
in the island, a commission which was confirmed 
by Bonaparte about December, 1799. All classes 
and colors regarded him as a general benefactor 
and a wise and judicious ruler. Order and pros- 
perity were restored, and his government was con- 
ducted with moderation and humanity. It looked 
as though peace and good will might continue in 
Hayti as long as this able governor lived, but un- 
luckily he had to deal with a man in whom am- 
bition and pride of place overruled all conceptions 



l'ouyertitre and the revolution in hayti. 211 

of justice. This was Napoleon Bonaparte, who had 
now risen to the supreme power in France. 

Bonaparte seems to have been angered by two 
letters which Toussaint sent him, after having com- 
pletely pacified the island. These were addressed, 
"The First of the Blacks to the First of the 
"Whites." The assumed equality seems to have 
touched the pride of the conqueror, for he disdained 
to answer the letters of the Haytian ruler. Early 
in 1800 a republican constitution was drafted under 
the auspices of Toussaint, which made Hayti vir- 
tually independent, though under the guardianship 
of France. An election was held and the liberator 
chosen president for life. 

When the news of this action reached France in 
July, 1800, Napoleon was furious. He had just 
been made First Consul and would brook no equal. 
' ' He is a revolted slave, whom we must punish, ' ' 
he exclaimed ; ' ' the honor of France is outraged. ' ' 
Resolved to reduce the negroes again to slavery, he 
sent to Hayti a fleet of sixty ships and an army of 
about thirty-five thousand men, under General Le- 
clerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte. Pauline 
accompanied him, and also several officers who had 
been former opponents of Toussaint. 

Meanwhile, the Haytien president had not been 
idle. Having subdued the French portion of the 
island, he led his army into the Spanish portion, 
which was also reduced, San Domingo, its capi- 
tal, being taken on January 2, 1801. When the 
keys of this city were handed to him by its gov- 



212 HISTORICAL TALES. 

ernor, the negro conqueror said, solemnly, * ' I ac- 
cept them in the name of the French Kepublic. ' ' 
Yet his conquests in the name of France did not 
soften the heart of the First Consul, who was bent 
on treating him as a daring rebel. The Peace of 
Amiens left the hands of Napoleon free in Europe, 
and the expedition under Leclerc reached the island 
about the end of 1801. 

To oppose the strong army of Napoleon's vet- 
erans, men who had been trained to victory under 
his own eye, Toussaint had a force of blacks little 
more than half as strong. As he looked at the 
soldiers disembarking from the ships in the Bay of 
Samana he exclaimed in dismay, ' ' We are lost ! 
All France is coming to invade our poor island !" 

The French made landings at several of the ports 
of Hayti, driving back their defenders. The city 
of San Domingo, held by Toussaint' s brother, Paul, 
was taken. Cristophe, a daring negro who was 
to figure high in the subsequent history of the 
island, commanded at Cape Haytien, and when 
Leclerc summoned him to surrender, replied, "Go 
tell your general that the French shall march here 
only over ashes, and that the ground shall burn 
beneath their feet." This was not bombast, for 
when he found further defence impossible, he set 
fire to the city and retreated to the mountains, 
taking with him two thousand white prisoners. 
Grief and despair filled the soul of Toussaint when, 
marching to the relief of Cristophe, he saw the 
roads filled with fugitives and the city in ashes. 



l'ouverture and the revolution in hayti. 213 

But though the French became masters of the 
ports, the army of the blacks maintained itself in 
the mountain fastnesses, in which Toussaint defied 
all the efforts of his foes. After Leclerc had lost 
heavily, and began to despair of subduing his able 
opponent by force of arms, he had recourse to 
strategy. He had brought with him Toussaint' s 
two sons. Napoleon had interviewed these boys 
before their departure from France, saying to them, 
"Your father is a great man, and has rendered 
good service to France. Tell him I say so, and bid 
him not to believe I have any hostile intention 
against the island. The troops I send are not de- 
signed to fight the natives, but to increase their 
strength, and the man I have appointed to com- 
mand is my own brother-in-law. ' ' 

Leclerc sent these boys to Toussaint, with the 
demand that he should submit or send his children 
back as hostages. An affecting interview took 
place between the boys and their father, and when 
they repeated to him Napoleon's words, he was at 
first inclined to yield, but fuller consideration in- 
duced him to refuse. 

' ' I cannot accept your terms, ' ' he said. ' ' The 
First Consul offers me peace, but his general no 
sooner arrives than he begins a fierce war. No; 
my country demands my first consideration. Take 
back my sons. ' ' 

In the continuation of the war a French force of 
twenty thousand men under Eochambeau marched 
against Toussaint, who was strongly intrenched at 



214 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Crete a Pierrot. In the contest that followed 
Toussaint at first outgeneralled Kochambeau and 
defeated him with severe loss. But the assistance 
he looked for from his subordinates failed to reach 
him, and at length he was forced to retreat. 

The French, however, despite their superior 
numbers and the military experience of their 
leaders, found that they had no mean antagonist in 
the negro general, and Leclerc again resorted to 
negotiation, offering the blacks their freedom if 
they would submit. Toussaint, seeing that he was 
unable to hold his own against his powerful foe, 
and convinced that the terms offered would be ad- 
vantageous to his country, now decided to accept 
them, saying, ' ' I accept everything which is favor- 
able for the people and for the army; as for myself, 
I wish to live in retirement. ' ' 

The negro liberator trusted his enemies too much. 
The pride of Napoleon had not yet digested the 
affront of Toussaint' s message, ' ' From the First of 
the Blacks to the First of the Whites, ' ' and he sent 
orders to Leclerc to arrest and send him to France. 
In June, 1802, a force was sent secretly at night to 
Toussaint' s home, where he was dwelling in peace 
and quiet. The house was surrounded, two blacks 
that sought to defend him were killed on the spot, 
and he was dragged from his bed and taken to the 
coast. Here he was placed on board a man-of-war, 
which at once set sail for France. 

Napoleon's treatment of Toussaint was one of 
the dark deeds in his career. Eeaching France, 



l'ouverture and the revolution in hayti. 215 

the captive was separated from his wife and chil- 
dren and confined in the dungeon of a dreary fron- 
tier castle. Here, one morning in April, 1803, 
Toussaint L'Ouverture, the negro liberator, was 
found dead. He had been starved to death, if we 
may accept the belief of some authors. 

The Haytien patriot died in poverty, though he 
might easily have accumulated vast wealth. In 
his official position he had maintained a degree of 
magnificence, and Napoleon believed that he had 
concealed great riches somewhere in the island. 
He sent spies to question him, but Toussaint' s only 
reply was, ' ' No, the treasures you seek are not 
those I have lost. ' ' The lost ones were his wife, 
his children, and his liberty. 

Treachery is often an error, and Napoleon was 
soon to find that he had made a fatal mistake in 
his treatment of the leader of the blacks. Alarmed 
at his seizure, and having no one to control them, 
the negroes flew to arms, and soon the revolt 
spread over the whole island. Yellow fever came 
to the aid of the blacks, raging in Leclerc' s army 
until thousands of soldiers and fifteen hundred 
officers found graves in the land they had invaded. 
In the end Leclerc himself died, and Pauline was 
taken back to France. When Napoleon heard the 
story of the fate of his expedition, he exclaimed in 
dismay, — 

"Here, then, is all that remains of my fine 
army; the body of a brother-in-law, of a general, 
my right arm, a handful of dust ! All has perished, 



216 HISTORICAL TALES. 

all will perish ! Fatal conquest ! Cursed land ! 
Perfidious colonists ! A wretched slave in revolt. 
These are the causes of so many evils. ' ' He might 
more truly have said, ' ' My own perfidy is the cause 
of all those evils. ' ' 

A few words must conclude this tale. General 
Eochambeau was sent large reinforcements, and 
with an army of twenty thousand men attempted 
the reconquest of the island. After a campaign of 
ferocity on both sides, he found himself blockaded 
at Cape Haytien, and was saved from surrender to 
the revengeful blacks only by the British, to whom 
he yielded the eight thousand men he had left. 
As he sailed from the island he saw the mountain- 
tops blazing with the beacon-fires of joy kindled 
by the blacks. From that day to this the island 
of ITayti has remained in the hands of the negro 
race. 



BOLIVAR THE LIBERATOR, AND 
THE CONQUEST OF NEW GRA- 
NADA. 

One dark night in the year 1813 a negro mur- 
derer crept stealthily into a house in Jamaica, 
where slept a man in a swinging hammock. Steal- 
ing silently to the side of the sleeper, the assassin 
plunged his knife into his breast, then turned and 
fled. Fortunately for American independence he 
had slain the wrong man. The one whom he had 
been hired to kill was Simon Bolivar, the great 
leader of the patriots of Spanish America. But 
on that night Bolivar's secretary occupied his ham- 
mock, and the ' ' Liberator' ' escaped. 

Bolivar was then a refugee in the English island, 
after the failure of his early attempt to win free- 
dom for his native land of Yenezuela. He was 
soon back there again, however, with recruited 
forces, and for years afterwards the war went on, 
with variations of failure and success, the Spanish 
general Morillo treating the people who fell into 
his hands with revolting cruelty. 

It was not until 1819 that Bolivar perceived the 
true road to success. This was by leaving Yenezu- 
ela, from which he had sought in vain to dislodge 
the Spaniards, and carrying the war into the more 
promising field of New Granada. So confident of 

217 



218 HISTORICAL TALES. 

victory did he feel in this new plan that he issued 
the following proclamation to the people of New 
Granada : ' ' The day of America has come ; no hu- 
man power can stay the course of Nature guided 
by Providence. Before the sun has again run his 
annual course altars to Liberty will arise throughout 
your land. ' ' 

Bolivar had recently been strengthened by a 
British legion, recruited in London among the dis- 
banded soldiers of the Napoleonic wars. He had 
also sent General Santander to the frontier of New 
Granada, and General Barreiro, the Spanish general, 
had been driven back. Encouraged by this success, 
he joined Santander at the foot of the Andes in 
June, 1819, bringing with him a force of twenty- 
five hundred men, including his British auxiliaries. 

Bolivar in this expedition had as bitter a foe to 
conquer in nature as in the human enemy. In 
order to join Santander he was obliged to cross an 
enormous plain which at that season of the year 
was covered with water, and to swim some deep 
rivers, his war materials needing to be transported 
over these streams. But this was child' s play com- 
pared with what lay before him. To reach his goal 
the Andes had to be crossed at some of their most 
forbidding points, a region over which it seemed 
next to impossible for men to go, even without 
military supplies. 

When the invading army left the plains for the 
mountains the soldiers quickly found themselves 
amid discouraging scenes. In the distance rose the 



BOLIVAR AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW GRANADA. 219 

snowy peaks of the eastern range of the Cordillera, 
and the waters of the plain through which they had 
waded were here replaced by the rapids and cata- 
racts of mountain streams. The roads in many 
places followed the edge of steep precipices, and 
were bordered by gigantic trees, while the clouds 
above them poured down incessant rains. 

Four days of this march used up most of the 
horses, which were foundered by the difficulties of 
the way. As a consequence, an entire squadron of 
Llaneros, men who lived in the saddle, and were 
at home only on the plain, deserted on finding 
themselves on foot. To cross the frequent torrents 
there were only narrow, trembling bridges formed 
of tree-trunks, or the aerial taravitas. These con- 
sisted of stout ropes made by twisting several thongs 
of well-greased hides. The ropes were tied to trees 
on the two banks of the ravine, while from them 
was suspended a cradle or hammock of capacity 
for two persons, which was drawn backward and 
forward by long lines. Horses and mules were 
similarly drawn across, suspended by long girths 
around their bodies. 

Where the streams were fordable the current was 
usually so strong that the infantry had to pass two 
by two with their arms thrown round each other' s 
shoulders. To lose their footing was to lose their 
lives. Bolivar frequently passed these torrents 
back and forward on horseback, carrying the sick 
and weakly, or the women who accompanied the 
expedition. 



220 HISTORICAL TALES. 

In the lower levels the climate was moist and 
warm, only a little firewood being needed for their 
nightly bivouacs. But as they ascended they reached 
localities where an ice-cold wind blew through the 
stoutest clothing, while immense heaps of rocks and 
hills of snow bounded the view on every side and 
clouds veiled the depths of the abysses. The only 
sounds to be heard were those of the roaring tor- 
rents they had passed and the scream of the condor 
as it circled the snowy peaks above. Here all 
vegetation disappeared except the clinging lichens 
and a tall plant which bore plumes instead of leaves 
and was covered with yellow flowers, resembling a 
funeral torch. To add to the terrors of the journey 
the path was marked by crosses, erected in memory 
of travellers who had perished by the way. 

In this glacial region the provisions brought with 
them gave out. The cattle on which they had de- 
pended as their chief resource could go no farther. 
Thus, dragging on through perils and privation, at 
length they reached the summit of the Paya pass, 
a natural stronghold where a battalion would have 
been able to hold a regiment in check. An outpost 
of three hundred men occupied it, but these were 
easily dispersed by Santander, who led the van. 

At this point the men, worn out by the difficul- 
ties of the way, began to murmur. Bolivar called 
a council of war and told its members that there 
were greater difficulties still to surmount. He 
asked if they would keep on, or if they preferred 
to return. They all voted in favor of going on- 



BOLIVAR AND THE CONQUEST OP NEW GRANADA. 221 

ward, and the knowledge of their decision inspired 
the weary troops with new spirit. 

Before the terrible passage was completed one 
hundred men had died of cold, fifty of them being 
Englishmen. Not a horse was left, and it was 
necessary to abandon the spare arms, and even 
some of those borne by the soldiers. It was little 
more than the skeleton of an army that at length 
reached the beautiful valley of Sagamoso, in the 
heart of the province of Tunja, on the 6th of 
July, 1819. Besting at this point, Bolivar sent 
back assistance to the stragglers who still lingered 
on the road, and despatched parties to collect horses 
and communicate with the few guerillas who roamed 
about that region. 

Barreiro, the Spanish commander, held the Tunja 
province with two thousand infantry and four hun- 
dred horse. There was also a reserve of one thou- 
sand troops at Bogota, the capital, and detach- 
ments elsewhere, while there was another royalist 
army at Quito. Bolivar trusted to surprise and 
to the support of the people to overcome these 
odds, and he succeeded in the first, for Barreiro was 
ignorant of his arrival, and supposed the passage 
of the Cordillera impossible at that season of the 
year. 

He was soon aware, however, that the patriots 
had achieved this impossible thing and were in his 
close vicinity, and with all haste collected his forces 
and took possession of the heights above the plain 
of Yargas. By this movement he interposed be- 



222 HISTORICAL TALES. 

tween the patriots and the town of Tunja, which, 
as attached to the cause of liberty, Bolivar was 
anxious to occupy. It was not long, therefore, 
before the opposing armies met, and a battle took 
place that lasted five hours. The patriots won, 
chiefly by the aid of the English infantry, led by 
Colonel James Rooke, who had the misfortune to 
lose an arm in the engagement. 

The victory was by no means a decisive one, and the 
road to Tunja remained in the hands of the royalists. 
Instead of again attacking his intrenched foe, Boli- 
var now employed strategy, retreating during the 
day, then making a rapid countermarch at night, 
thus passing Barreiro's forces in the dark over 
by-roads. On the 5th of August Tunja fell into 
his hands. He found there an abundance of war 
material, and by holding it he cut off Barreiro's 
communication with Bogota. 

The strength of Bolivar' s generalship lay in rapid 
and unexpected movements like this. The Spanish 
leaders, bound in the shackles of military routine, 
were astonished and dismayed by the forced marches 
of their enemies over roads that seemed unfit for 
the passage of an army. While they were ma- 
noeuvring, calculating, hesitating, guarding the 
customary avenues of approach, Bolivar would 
surprise them by concentrating a superior force 
upon a point which they imagined safe from attack, 
and, by throwing them into confusion, would cut 
up their forces in detail. As a result, the actions 
of the patriot commander in the field seemed less 



BOLIVAR AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW GRANADA. 223 

impressive than those of less notable generals, but 
the sum of effects was far superior. 

Bolivar' s occupation of Tunja took the Spaniards 
by surprise. Barreiro, finding himself unexpectedly 
cut off from his centre of supplies, fell back upon 
Venta Quemada, where he was soon followed by 
his foe, anxious to deal a decisive blow before the 
royal forces could concentrate. Boyaca, the site 
now occupied by the hostile armies, was a wooded 
and mountainous country and one well suited to 
Bolivar's characteristic tactics. Placing a large 
part of his troops in ambush and manoeuvring so as 
to get his cavalry in the enemy' s rear, he advanced 
to the attack with a narrow front. On this Bar- 
reiro made a furious assault, forcing his opponents 
to recoil. But this retreat was only a stratagem, 
for, as they fell back, the Spaniards found them- 
selves suddenly attacked in the flank by the am- 
bushed troops, while the cavalry rode furiously 
upon their rear. 

In a few minutes they were surrounded, and the 
fierce attack threw them into utter confusion, in 
which the patriot army cut them down almost 
without resistance. General Barreiro was taken 
prisoner on the field of battle, throwing away his 
sword when he saw that escape was impossible, to 
save himself the mortification of surrendering it to 
General Bolivar. Colonel Ximenes, his second in 
command, was also taken, together with most of 
the officers and more than sixteen hundred men. 
All their artillery, ammunition, horses, etc., were 



224 HISTORICAL TALES. 

captured, and a very small portion of the army 
escaped. Some of these fled before the battle was 
decided, but many of them were taken by the 
peasantry of the surrounding country and brought 
in as prisoners. The loss of the patriots was in- 
credibly small, — only thirteen killed and fifty-three 
wounded. 

Boyaca — after Maypo, by which Chili gained its 
freedom — was the great battle of South America. 
It gave the patriots supremacy in the north, as 
Maypo had done in the south. New Granada was 
freed from the Spaniards, and on August 9, two 
days after the battle, the viceroy, Samana, hastily 
evacuated Bogota, fleeing in such precipitate haste 
that in thirty hours he reached Honda, usually a 
journey of three days. On the 12th Bolivar tri- 
umphantly marched into the capital, and found in 
its coffers silver coin to the value of half a million 
dollars, which the viceroy had left behind in his 
haste. 

It must be said further that the English auxiliaries 
aided greatly in the results of these battles, their 
conduct giving Bolivar such gratification that he 
made them all members of the Order of the Lib- 
erator. 

It is not our purpose to tell the whole story of 
this implacable war, but simply to relate the dra- 
matic invasion and conquest of ]STew Granada. It 
must suffice, then, to state that the war dragged on 
for two years longer, ending finally in 1821 with 
the victory of Carabobo, in which the Spaniards 



BOLIVAR AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW GRANADA. 225 

were totally defeated and lost more than six thou- 
sand men. After that they withdrew and a repub- 
lic was organized, with Bolivar for its president. 

Two years later he aided the Peruvians in gaining 
their independence and was declared their liberator 
and made supreme dictator of the country. After 
ruling there absolutely for two years, he resigned 
and gave the country a republican constitution. 
The congress of Lima elected him president for 
life, and a new commonwealth was organized in the 
northern section of Peru, to which the people gave 
the name of Bolivia, in honor of the winner of 
their liberties. 



15 



HIDALGO THE PATRIOT, AND 
THE GRITO DE DOLORES. 

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century 
ideas of revolution were widely in the air. The 
people were rising against the tyranny of the kings. 
First in this struggle for liberty came the English 
colonies in America. Then the people of France 
sprang to arms and overthrew the moss-grown 
tyranny of feudal times. The armies of Napoleon 
spread the demand for freedom through Europe. 
In Spain the people began to fight for their freedom, 
and soon the thirst for liberty crossed the ocean to 
America, where the people of the Spanish colonies 
had long been oppressed by the tyranny of their 
rulers. 

The citizens of Mexico had been deeply infected 
by the example of the great free republic of the 
north, and the seed of liberty grew for years in their 
minds. Chief among its advocates was a farmer's 
son named Miguel Hidalgo, a true scion of the 
people and an ardent lover of liberty, who for 
years longed to make his native Mexico inde- 
pendent of the effete royalty of Spain. He did not 
conceal his views on this subject, though his deeper 
projects were confided only to a few trusty friends, 
chief among whom was Ignacio Allende, a man of 
wealth and of noble Spanish descent, and a captain 
226 



HIDALGO AND THE GRITO DE DOLORES. 227 

of dragoons in the army. These men, with a few 
intimates, consulted often and matured their plans, 
confident that the desire for liberty was strong in 
the country and that the patriot people needed 
only a leader to break out into insurrection. 

Hidalgo's eager desire for liberty, long smoul- 
dering, burst into flame in 1810, when the Spanish 
authorities attempted to arrest in Queretaro some 
revolutionists who had talked too freely. Warned 
of their danger, these men fled or concealed them- 
selves. News of this came quickly to Hidalgo and 
taught him that with his reputation there was 
but one of two things to do, he must flee or strike. 
He decided to strike, and in this he was supported 
by Allende, whose liberty was also in danger. 

The decisive step was taken on the 15th of Sep- 
tember, 1810. That night Hidalgo was roused 
from slumber by one of his liberty-loving friends, 
and told that the hour had come. Calling his 
brother to his aid and summoning a few of those 
in the secret, he led the small party of revolutionists 
to the prison, broke it open, and set free certain 
men who had been seized for their liberal ideas. 

This took place in the early hours of a Sunday. 
When day broke and the countrymen of the neigh- 
boring parish came to early mass the news of the 
night's event spread among them rapidly and 
caused great excitement. To a man they took the 
side of Hidalgo, and before the day grew old he 
found himself at the head of a small band of ardent 
revolutionists. They at once set out for San Miguel 



228 HISTORICAL TALES. 

le Grande, the nearest town, into which marched 
before nightfall of the day a little party of eighty 
men, the nucleus of the Mexican revolution. For 
standard they bore a picture of the Holy Yirgin 
of Guadalupe, taken from a village church. New 
adherents came to their ranks till they were three 
hundred strong. Such was the movement known in 
Mexico as the " Grito de Dolores," their war-cry, 
the Grito, being, ' ' Up with True Eeligion, and 
down with False Government. ' ' 

Never before had an insurrection among the 
submissive common people been known in Mexico. 
When news of it came to the authorities they were 
stupefied with amazement. That peasants and 
townspeople, the plain workers of the land, should 
have opinions of their own about government and 
the rights of man was to them a thing too mon- 
strous to be endured, but for the time being they 
were so dumfounded as to be incapable of taking 
any vigorous action. 

While the authorities digested the amazing news 
of the outbreak, the movement grew with sur- 
prising rapidity. Hidalgo' s little band was joined 
by the regiment of his comrade Allende, and a 
crowd of field laborers, armed with slings, sticks, 
and spades, hastened in to swell their ranks. So 
popular did the movement prove that in a brief 
period the band of eighty men had grown to a 
great host, fifty thousand or more in numbers. 
Poorly armed and undiscijnined as they were, their 
numbers gave them strength. Hidalgo put himself 



HIDALGO AND THE GRITO DE DOLORES. 229 

at their head as commander-in-chief, with Allende 
as his second in command, and active exertions 
were made to organize an army out of this undi- 
gested material. 

The next thing we perceive in this promising 
movement for liberty is the spectacle of Hidalgo 
and his host of enthusiastic followers marching on 
the rich and nourishing city of Guanajuato, capital 
of a mining state, the second largest in Mexico. 
This city occupies a deep but narrow ravine, its 
houses crowded on the steep slopes, up which the 
streets climb like stairways. 

The people of the city were terrified when they 
saw this great body of people marching upon them, 
with some of the organization of a regular army, 
though most of them bore only the arms of a mob. 
The authorities, who were advised of their ap- 
proach, showed some energy. Resolving not to 
surrender and making hasty preparations for de- 
fence, they intrenched themselves in a strongly 
built grain warehouse, with the governor at their 
head. 

Much better armed than the mass of their as- 
sailants, and backed up by strong stone walls, the 
authorities defended themselves vigorously, and for 
a time the affair looked anything but promising for 
Hidalgo's improvised army. Success came at last 
through the courage of a little boy, called Pipita, 
who, using as a shield a flat tile torn from the 
pavement, and holding a blazing torch in his hand, 
crept through a shower of bullets up to the gate 



230 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of the stronghold and set fire to it. As the flames 
spread upward, the insurgents broke in upon the 
frightened defenders, killing some and making 
prisoners of the others. 

The common people of the city, in sympathy 
with the revolutionists, and inspired with the mob 
spirit of pillage, now rushed in disorder through 
the streets, breaking into and robbing shops and 
houses, until checked in their career of plunder by 
Hidalgo, who restored order by threatening condign 
punishment to any plunderers. He proceeded to 
make the city a stronghold and centre for the 
collection of arms and money, his forces being 
increased by the defection from the Spaniards of 
three squadrons of regular troops, while the whole 
province declared for the cause of the revolution. 

While this was going on, the governing powers 
in Mexico had recovered from their stupefaction 
and begun to take active measures to suppress the 
dangerous movement. Shortly before a new viceroy 
had arrived in Mexico, Don Francisco Venegas, a 
Spanish general who had distinguished himself in 
the war with Napoleon. Fancying that he had a 
peaceful life before him in America, he began his 
work of government by calling a council of promi- 
nent persons and asking them to help him raise 
money from the loyal people for the support of 
their brethren in Spain who were fighting against 
Napoleon. Three days later the Grito de Dolores 
broke out and he saw that his dream of peace was 
at an end, and that he would need all the funds 



HIDALGO AND THE GRITO DE DOLORES. 231 

he could raise to suppress revolution in his new 
government. 

The viceroy, an experienced soldier, at once 
ordered the troops in garrison at Mexico to Quere- 
taro, strengthening them by rural detachments, 
and summoning garrisons from the north, west, 
and east. He issued at the same time a decree 
under which all Indians were released from taxa- 
tion, and promised pardon to all rebels who should 
at once lay down their arms; a reward of ten thou- 
sand dollars being offered for the capture or death 
of the three chief insurgents, Hidalgo, Allende, and 
Aldama. 

The civil authorities were vigorously supported by 
the clergy in this action against the revolution. Hi- 
dalgo and his chief comrades were excommunicated 
by the bishops, and the local clergy denounced them 
bitterly from their pulpits. The Inquisition, which 
had taken action against Hidalgo in 1800 for his 
dangerous opinions, now cited him to appear before 
its tribunal and answer these charges. But bishops 
and inquisitors alike wasted their breath on the 
valiant insurgents, who maintained that it was not 
religion but tyranny that they were banded against. 

The revolutionists took possession of Yalladolid 
on the 17th of October, without resistance, the 
bishop and authorities fleeing at their approach. 
As the valiant bishop was gone, Hidalgo forced 
the canons he had left behind to remove the sen- 
tence of excommunication. The town was made a 
second stronghold of the revolution and a centre 



232 HISTORICAL TALES. 

for new recruiting, the army increasing so rapidly 
that in ten days' time its leader took the bold step 
of advancing upon Mexico, the capital city. 

The approach of the insurgents, who had now 
grown greatly in numbers, filled the people of the 
capital with terror. They remembered the sack of 
Guanajuata, and hastened to conceal their valu- 
ables, while many of them fled for safety. As 
the insurgents drew near they were met by the 
army of the viceroy, and a fierce battle took place 
upon an elevation called the Monte de la Cruces, 
outside the city. A hot fire of artillery swept the 
ranks of the insurgents, but, filled with enthusiasm, 
and greatly outnumbering the royal troops, they 
swept resistlessly on, bearing down all before them, 
and sweeping the viceroy' s soldiers from the field 
with heavy loss. Only his good horse saved Tru- 
jillo, the commanding general, from death or cap- 
ture, and bore him in safety to the city. 

Mexico, filled with panic and confusion at the 
news of the disastrous defeat of its defenders, 
could perhaps have been easily taken, and its cap- 
ture might possibly have closed the struggle in 
favor of liberty. It certainly was a moment for 
that boldness on which success so often depends, 
but Hidalgo at this critical stage took counsel from 
prudence instead of daring, and, fearing the arrival 
of reinforcements to the beaten army, withdrew 
his forces towards Queretaro — a weak and fatal 
retrograde movement, as it proved. 

The viceroy had another army advancing from 



HIDALGO AND THE GRITO DE DOLORES. 233 

the north, under the command of Calleja, a skilful 
general. Meeting Hidalgo at Aculco on his march 
towards Queretaro, he attacked him with such 
vigor that, after a hot combat, the insurgents were 
utterly worsted, losing all their artillery and many 
men. In fact, the whole loose-joined army fell to 
pieces at this severe repulse, and Hidalgo was fol- 
lowed to Yalladolid with an insignificant remnant 
of his mighty host. 

Calleja followed up his victory with a pursuit of 
Allende and a fierce attack on him at Guanajuato, 
forcing him to abandon the city and retreat to 
Zacatecas, which had proclaimed independence. 
Calleja, who had much of the traditional Spanish 
cruelty, now sullied his triumph by a barbarous 
retaliation upon the people of the city he had 
taken, who were most savagely punished for their 
recent plundering outbreak. 

The remainder of this story of revolution is a 
brief and unfortunate one. Hidalgo gathered an- 
other army and led them to Guadalajara, where he 
organized a government, appointed ministers, and 
styled himself generalissimo. He despatched a 
commissioner to the United States, but this per- 
sonage soon found himself a prisoner. Arms were 
collected and the army organized as rapidly as 
possible, but his forces were still in the rough 
when, disregarding the advice of Allende and 
others, he resolved to attack Calleja. He advanced 
on the 16th of January to the Puenta de Calderon, 
where he found himself in face of a well -equipped 



234 HISTORICAL TALES. 

and disciplined army of ten thousand men, superior 
in everything but numbers to bis undisciplined levies. 
They fought bravely enough in the battle of the 
next day, but they were no match for their oppo- 
nents, and the contest ended in a complete rout, 
the insurgents scattering in all directions. 

Hidalgo hastened towards Zacatecas, meeting on 
his way Allende, Jiminez, and other leaders who had 
escaped from the fatal field of Calderon. The cause 
of liberty seemed at an end. Calleja was vigor- 
ously putting down the revolution on all sides. As 
a last hope the chiefs hastened towards the United 
States borders with such men and money as they 
had left, proposing there to recruit and discipline 
another army. But before reaching the frontier 
they were overtaken by their pursuers, being cap- 
tured in a desert region near the Eio Grande. 

The captives were now taken under a strong 
escort to Chihuahua, where they were tried and 
condemned to death. Allende, Aldama, and Jim- 
inez were shot on the 26th of June, and Hidalgo 
paid the penalty of his life on the 31st of July, 
1811. Thus, in the death of its chiefs, ended the 
first struggle for independence in Mexico. The 
heads of the four chiefs were taken to Guanajuato 
and nailed to the four corners of the stronghold 
which they had taken by storm in that city. There 
they remained till the freedom of Mexico was won, 
when they were given solemn burial beneath the 
altar of the sovereigns in the cathedral of Mexico. 
The Alhondiga de Grenaditas, the building to which 



HIDALGO AND THE GRITO DE DOLORES. 235 

their heads were attached, is now used as a prison, 
but its walls still bear the spike which for ten years 
held Hidalgo's head. Before it there stands a bronze 
statue of this earliest of the Mexican patriot leaders. 

Shall we add a few words descriptive of the later 
course of the struggle for independence? The 
death of Hidalgo left mauy patriots still alive, and 
one of these, Moreles the muleteer, kept up the 
war with varying fortunes until 1815, when he, 
too, was taken and shot. 

The man to whom Moreles owed his downfall 
was Augustin de Yturbide, a royalist leader, who 
pursued the insurgents with relentless energy. Yet 
it was to this man that Mexico in the end owed its 
independence. After the death of Moreles a chief 
named Guerrero kept up the war for liberty, and 
against him Yturbide was sent in 1820. As it 
proved, the royalist had changed his views, and 
after some fighting with Guerrero he joined hands 
with him and came out openly as a patriot leader. 
He had under him a well-disciplined army, and ad- 
vanced from success to success till the final viceroy 
found himself forced to acknowledge the indepen- 
dence of Mexico. 

The events that followed — how Mexico was or- 
ganized into an empire, with Yturbide as emperor 
under the title of Augustin I., and how a new 
revolution made it a republic and Yturbide was 
shot as a traitor — belong to that later history of the 
Spanish American republics in which revolution and 
counter-revolution continued almost annual events. 



PAEZ, THE LLANERO CHIEF, AND 
THE WAR FOR FREEDOM. 

On the 3d of June, 1819, General Morillo, the 
commander of the Spanish forces in Venezuela, 
found himself threatened in his camp by a party of 
one hundred and fifty daring horsemen, who had 
swum the Orinoco and galloped like centaurs upon 
his line. Eight hundred of the Spanish cavalry, 
with two small field-pieces, sallied out to meet 
their assailants, who slowly retired before their 
superior numbers. In this way the royalists were 
drawn on to a place called Las Queseras del Medio, 
where a battalion of infantry had been placed in 
ambush near the river. Here, suddenly ceasing 
their retreat, and dividing up into groups of twenty, 
the patriot horsemen turned on the Spaniards and 
assailed them on all sides, driving them back 
under the fire of the infantry, by whom they were 
fearfully cut down. Then they recrossed the river 
with two killed and a few wounded, while the plain 
was strewn with the bodies of their foes. 

This anecdote may serve to introduce to our 
readers Joseph Antonio Paez, the leader of the 
band of patriot horsemen, and one of the most 
daring and striking figures among the liberators of 
South America. Born of Indian parents of low 
extraction, and quite illiterate, Paez proved him- 
236 



PAEZ AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM. 237 

self so daring as a soldier that he became in time 
general-in-chief of the armies of Venezuela and 
the neighboring republics, and was Bolivar's most 
trusted lieutenant during the war for independence. 

Brought up amid the herds of half-wild cattle 
belonging to his father, who was a landholder in 
the Yenezuelan plains, he became thoroughly skilled 
in the care of cattle and horses, and an adept at 
curing their disorders. He was accustomed to 
mount and subdue the wildest horses, and was 
noted for strength and agility and for power of en- 
during fatigue. 

A llanero, or native of the elevated plains of 
Yenezuela, he rose naturally to great influence 
among his fellow-herdsmen, and when the revolu- 
tion began, in 1810, and he declared in favor of 
the cause of freedom, his reputation for courage was 
so great that they were very ready to enlist under 
him. He chose from among them one hundred and 
fifty picked horsemen, and this band, under the 
title of ' ' Guides of the Apure, ' ' soon made itself 
the terror of the Spaniards. 

The following story well shows his intrepid 
character. After the death of his mother young 
Paez inherited her property in Barinas, and divided 
it with his sisters who were living in that town. 
The Spanish forces, which had been driven out of 
it, occupied it again in 1811, and proclaimed a 
general amnesty for the inhabitants, inviting all 
property-holders to return and promising to rein- 
state them in their fortunes. Paez, hearing of 



238 HISTORICAL TALES. 

this, rode boldly into Barinas and presented him- 
self before the Spanish commandant, saying that 
he had come to avail himself of the amnesty and 
take possession of his property. 

He was soon recognized by the inhabitants, who 
gathered in hundreds to welcome and shake hands 
with him, and the news quickly spread among the 
Spanish soldiers that this was the famous Captain 
Paez, who had done them so much mischief. Seiz- 
ing their arms, they called loudly on their com- 
mander to arrest and shoot the insolent newcomer as 
a rebel and traitor. But this officer, who was well 
aware of the valor of Paez, and perceived his great 
influence over the people of Barinas, deemed it 
very imprudent to take a step that might lead to 
a general outbreak, and concluded to let his peril- 
ous visitor alone. He therefore appeased his sol- 
diers, and Paez was left unmolested in the house of 
his sisters. 

The governor, however, only bided his time. 
Spies were set to watch the daring llanero, and 
after some days they informed their leaders that 
Paez had gone out unarmed, and that there was a 
good opportunity to seize his weapons as a prelim- 
inary to his arrest. When Paez returned home 
after his outing, he was told that armed men had 
visited the house and taken away his sword and 
pistols. 

Incensed by this act of ill-faith, he boldly sought 
the governor' s house and angrily charged him with 
breaking his word. He had come to Barinas, he 



PAEZ AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM. 239 

said, trusting in the offer of amnesty, and vigorously 
demanded that his arms should be restored — not for 
use against the Spaniards, but for his personal se- 
curity. His tone was so firm and indignant, and 
his request so reasonable under the circumstances, 
that the governor repented of his questionable act, 
and gave orders that the arms should be returned. 

On hearing this, the whole garrison of Barinas 
assailed the governor with reproaches, impetuously 
demanding that the guerilla chief should be arrested 
and confined in irons. The versatile governor again 
gave way, and that night the Paez mansion was 
entered and he taken from his bed, put in irons, 
and locked up in prison. It was no more than he 
might have expected, if he had known as much of 
the Spanish character then as he was afterwards to 
learn. 

But Paez was not an easy captive to hold. In 
the prison he found about one hundred and fifty 
of his fellow rebels, among them his friend Garcia, 
an officer noted for strength and courage. On 
Garcia complaining to him of the weight of his 
irons and the miserable condition of the prisoners, 
Paez accused him of cowardice, and offered to ex- 
change fetters with him. To keep his word he 
broke his own chains by main strength and handed 
them to his astonished friend. 

Paez now spoke to the other prisoners and won 
their consent to a concerted break for liberty. 
Freed from his own fetters, he was able to give 
efficient service to the others, and before morning 



240 HISTORICAL TALES. 

nearly the whole of them were free. When the 
jailor opened the door in the morning he was 
promptly knocked down by Paez and threatened 
with instant death if he made a sound. Breaking 
into the guard-room, they seized the arms of the 
guard, set free those whose irons were not yet 
broken, and marched from the prison, with Paez at 
their head, upon the Spanish garrison, two hundred 
in number. Many of these were killed and the 
rest put to rout, and Barinas was once more in 
patriot hands. 

This anecdote will serve to show, better than 
pages of description, the kind of man that Paez 
was. When the act became known to the llaneros 
they proclaimed Paez their general, and were ready 
to follow him to the death. These cowboys of the 
Orinoco, if we may give them this title, were, like 
their leader, of Indian blood. Neither they nor 
their general knew anything about military art, 
and felt lost when taken from their native plains, a 
fact which was shown when they were called upon 
to follow Bolivar in his mountain expedition against 
New Granada. Neither persuasion nor force could 
induce them to leave the plains for the mountains. 
Bolivar and Paez entreated them in vain, and they 
declared that rather than go to the hill-country 
they would desert and return to their native plains, 
where alone they were willing to fight. This was 
their only act of insubordination under their favor- 
ite leader, who usually had complete control over 
them. He made himself one with his men, would 



PAEZ AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM. 241 

divide his last cent with them, and was called by 
them uncle and father. His staff-officers were all 
llaneros and formed his regular society, they being 
alike destitute of education and ignorant of tactics, 
but bold and dashing and ready to follow their 
leader to the cannon's mouth. 

The British Legion, about six hundred strong, 
was in the last year of the war attached to the 
llaneros corps, its members being highly esteemed 
by Paez, who called them ' ' my friends, the Eng- 
lish." The soldiers of the legion, however, were 
bitterly opposed to their commander, Colonel Bos- 
suet, whom they held responsible for the miserable 
state of their rations and clothes and their want of 
pay. At the end of one day, which was so scorch- 
ingly hot that the soldiers were excused from their 
usual five o'clock parade, the legion rushed from 
their quarters at this hour and placed themselves 
in order of battle, crying that they would rather 
have a Creole to lead them than their colonel. 

Their officers attempted to pacify them, but in 
vain, and the lieutenant-colonel, against whom they 
had taken offence, was attacked and mortally 
wounded with bayonet thrusts. When Colonel 
Bossuet appeared and sought to speak to them they 
rushed upon him with their bayonets, and it needed 
the active efforts of the other officers to save him 
from their revengeful hands. Tidings of the mu- 
tiny were brought to General Paez in his quarters 
and threw him into a paroxysm of rage. Seizing 
his sword, he rushed upon the mutineers, killed 
16 



242 HISTORICAL TALES. 

three of them instantly, and would have continued 
this bloody work but that his sword broke on the 
body of a fourth. Flinging down the useless weapon, 
he seized some of the most rebellious, dragged them 
from the ranks by main strength, and ordered them 
to be taken to prison. The others, dismayed by his 
spirited conduct, hastily dispersed and sought their 
quarters. The next day three of the most seditious 
of the soldiers, and a young lieutenant who was 
accused of aiding in the mutiny, — though probably 
innocent of it, — were arrested and shot without 
trial. 

Paroxysms of fury were not uncommon with 
Paez. After the battle of Ortiz, in which his 
daring charges alone saved the infantry from de- 
struction, he was seized with a fit, and lay on the 
ground, foaming at the mouth. Colonel English 
went to his aid, but his men warned him to let 
their general alone, saying, ' c He is often so, and 
will soon be all right. None of us dare touch him 
when he is in one of these spells. ' ' 

But Colonel English persisted, sprinkling his 
face with water and forcing some down his throat. 
The general soon recovered and thanked him for 
his aid, saying that he was a little overcome with 
fatigue, as he had killed thirty-nine of the enemy 
with his own hand. As he was running the fortieth 
through the body he felt his illness coming on. By 
way of reward he presented Colonel English with 
the lance which had done this bloody work and 
gave him three fine horses from his own stud. 



PAEZ AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM. 243 

These anecdotes of the dashing leader of the 
llaneros, who, like all Indians, viewed the Span- 
iards with an abiding hatred, are likely to be of 
more interest than the details of his services in the 
years of campaigning. In the field, it may be 
said, he was an invaluable aid to General Eolivar. 
In the campaigns against Morillo, the Spanish com- 
mander-in-chief, his daring activity and success were 
striking, and to him was largely due the winning 
the last great battle of the war, that of Cara- 
bobo. 

In this battle, fought on the 26th of June, 1821, 
Bolivar had about sixteen hundred infantry, a 
thousand or more of them being British, and three 
thousand of llanero cavalry under Paez. The 
Spaniards, under La Torre, had fewer men, but 
occupied a very strong defensive position. This 
was a plain, interspersed with rocky and wooded 
hills, and giving abundant space for military move- 
ments, while if driven back they could retire to 
one strong point after another, holding the enemy 
at disadvantage throughout. In front there was 
only one defile, and their wings were well protected, 
the left resting upon a deep morass. A squadron 
of cavalry protected their right wing, and on a hill 
opposite the defile — through which ran the road to 
Yalencia — was posted a small battery. 

This position seemed to give the royalists a 
decisive superiority over their patriot antagonists, 
and for twenty days they waited an attack, in full 
confidence of success. Bolivar hesitated to risk an 



244 HISTORICAL TALES. 

attack, fearing that the destiny of his country- 
might rest upon the result. He proposed an ar- 
mistice, but this was unanimously rejected by his 
council of war. Then it was suggested to seek to 
turn the position of the enemy, but this was also 
rejected, and it was finally decided to take every 
risk and assail the enemy in his stronghold, trust- 
ing to courage and the fortune of war for success. 

While the subject was being discussed by Bolivar 
and his staff, one of the guides of the army, who 
was thoroughly familiar with the country they 
occupied, stood near and overheard the conversa- 
tion. At its end he drew near Bolivar, and in a 
whisper told him that he knew a difficult foot- 
path by which the right wing of the Spaniards 
might be turned. 

This news was highly welcome, and, after a con- 
sultation with his informant, Bolivar secretly de- 
tached three battalions of his best troops, including 
the British legion and a strong column of cavalry 
under General Paez, directing them to follow the 
guide and preserve as much silence and secrecy as 
possible. 

The path proved to be narrow and very difficult. 
They were obliged to traverse it in single file, and 
it was paved with sharp stones that cut their 
shoes to pieces and deeply wounded their feet. 
Many of them tore their shirts and made bandages 
for their feet to enable them to go on. Fortunately 
for the success of the movement, it was masked by 
the forest, and the expedition was able to concen- 



£AEZ AND THE WAR FOR FREEDOM. 245 

trate in a position on the flank of the enemy with- 
out discovery. 

When at length the Spaniards found this un- 
welcome force on their flank they hastily despatched 
against it the royal battalion of Bengos, driving 
back the nearest troops and unmasking the British 
legion. This they fired upon and then charged 
with the bayonet. The British returned the fire 
and charged in their turn, and with such dash and 
vigor that the Spaniards soon gave way. In their 
retreat Paez marched upon them with a squadron 
called the Sacred Legion, and few of them got 
back to their ranks. In return a squadron of the 
Spaniards charged the British, but with less suc- 
cess, being dispersed by a hot musketry fire. 

While the Spanish right wing was being thus dealt 
with, a fierce attack had been made upon the front. 
The unexpected flank and rear attack was so dis- 
concerting that La Torre lost all presence of mind, 
and on every side his men were driven back and 
thrown into confusion. In front and on flank 
they were hotly pressed. The opportunity of re- 
treating to the succession of defensive points in the 
rear was quite lost sight of in the panic that in- 
vaded their ranks, and soon they were in precipi- 
tate retreat, their cavalry dispersed without making 
a charge, their infantry in the utmost disorder, their 
cannon and baggage-trains deserted and left to the 
enemy. 

In this state of affairs Paez showed his customary 
dash and activity. He pursued the Spaniards at 






246 HISTORICAL TALES. 

the head of the cavalry, cutting them down vigor- 
ously, and few of them would have escaped but for 
the fatigued and weak condition of his horses, 
which, rendered them unable to break the files of 
the Spanish infantry. In one of their unsuccessful 
charges General Sedeno, Colonel Plaza, and a black 
man called, from his courage, ElPrimero (the first), 
finding that they could not break the infantry lines, 
rushed madly into the midst of the bayonets and 
were killed. 

The news of this defeat spread consternation 
among the Spaniards. Thousands of the royalists 
in the cities hastened to leave the country, fearing 
the vengeance of the patriots, the Spanish com- 
manders lost all spirit, and three months later the 
strong fortress of Carthagena surrendered to the 
Colombians. Maracaibo was held till 1823, when it 
surrendered, and in July, 1824, Porto Cabello capit- 
ulated and the long contest was at an end. 

This final surrender was due in great measure to 
General Paez, who thus sustained his military ser- 
vice to the end. Though not gaining the renown 
of Bolivar, and doubtless incapable of heading an 
army and conducting a campaign, as a cavalry 
leader he was indispensable, and to him and his 
gallant llaneros was largely due the winning of 
liberty. 



THE HANNIBAL OF THE ANDES 
AND THE FREEDOM OF CHILL 

At the end of 1816 the cause of liberty in Chili 
was at its lowest ebb. After four years of struggle 
the patriots had met with a crushing defeat in 
1814, and had been scattered to the four winds. 
Since then the viceroy of Spain had ruled the land 
with an iron hand, many of the leading citizens 
being banished to the desolate island of Juan Fer- 
nandez, the imaginary scene of Robinson Crusoe's 
career, while many others were severely punished 
and all the people were oppressed. 

In this depressed state of Chilian affairs a hero 
came across the mountains to strike a new blow for 
liberty. Don Jose de San Martin had fought val- 
iantly for the independence of Buenos Ayres at the 
battle of San Lorenzo. Now the Argentine patriots 
sent him to the aid of their fellow-patriots in Chili 
and Peru. Such was the state of the conflict in the 
latter part of 1816, when San Martin, collecting the 
scattered bands of Chilian troops and adding them 
to men of his own command, got together a formi- 
dable array five thousand strong. The l ' Liberating 
Army of the Andes' ' these were called. 

An able organizer was San Martin, and he put 
his men through a thorough course of discipline. 
Those he most depended on were the cavalry, a 

247 



248 HISTORICAL TALES. 

force made up of the Gauchos, or cattlemen of 
the Pampas, whose life was passed in the saddle, 
and who were genuine centaurs of the plains. 

San Martin had the Andes to cross with his 
army, and this was a task like that which Han- 
nibal and Bonaparte had accomplished in the Alps. 
He set out himself at the head of his cavalry on 
the 17th of January, 1817, the infantry and ar- 
tillery advancing by a different route. The men 
of the army carried their own food, consisting of 
dried meat and parched corn, and depots of food 
were established at intervals along the route, the 
difficulty of transporting provision-trains being 
thus avoided. The field-pieces were slung between 
mules or dragged on sledges made of tough hide, 
and were hoisted or lowered by derricks, when 
steep places were reached. Some two thousand 
cattle were driven along to add to their food supply. 

Thus equipped, San Martin' s army set out on its 
difficult passage of the snow-topped Andes. He 
had previously sent over guerilla bands whose 
active movements thoroughly deceived the royalist 
generals as to his intended place of crossing. On- 
ward went the cavalry, spurred to extraordinary 
exertion by the fact that provisions began to run 
short. The passes to be traversed, thirteen thou- 
sand feet high and white with perpetual snow, 
formed a frightful route for the horsemen of the 
plains, yet they pushed on over the rugged moun- 
tains, with their yawning precipices, so rapidly as 
to cover three hundred miles in thirteen days. The 



THE HANNIBAL 0E THE ANDES. 249 

infantry advanced with equal fortitude and energy, 
and early in February the combined forces descended 
the mountains and struck the royalist army at the 
foot with such energy that it was soon fleeing in a 
total rout. So utterly defeated and demoralized 
were the royalists that Santiago, the capital, was 
abandoned and was entered by San Martin at the 
head of his wild gauchos and host of refugees on the 
15th of February. His funds at this time con- 
sisted of the two doubloons remaining in his pocket, 
while he had no military chest, no surgeons nor 
medicines for his wounded, and a very small supply 
of the indispensable requisites of an army. About 
all he had to depend on was the patriotism of his 
men and their enthusiasm over their brilliant cross- 
ing of the Andes and their easy victory over their 
foes. 

For the time being Chili was free. The royalists 
had vanished and the patriots were in full posses- 
sion. Thirty or more years before, a bold Irishman, 
bearing the name of O' Higgins, had come to Chili, 
where he quickly rose in position until he was given 
the title of Don Ambrosio, and attained successively 
the ranks of field-marshal of the royal army, baron, 
marquis, and finally viceroy of Peru. His son, Don 
Bernardo, was a man of his own type, able in peace 
and brilliant in war, and he was now made supreme 
dictator of Chili, an office which San Martin had 
refused. The banished patriots were brought home 
from their desert island, the royalists severely pun- 
ished, and a new army was organized to dislodge 



250 HISTORICAL TALES. 

the fragment of the Spanish army which still held 
out in the south. 

On the 15th of February, 1818, the anniversary 
of the decisive victory of the "Liberating Army 
of the Andes," O'Higgins declared the absolute 
independence of Chili. A vote of the people was 
taken in a peculiar manner. Two blank books were 
opened for signatures in every city, the first for 
independence, the second for those who preferred 
the rule of Spain. For fifteen days these remained, 
and then it was found that the first books were 
filled with names, while the second had not a single 
name. This vote O'Higgins declared settled the 
question of Chilian freedom. 

The Spaniards did not think so, for Abascal, the 
energetic viceroy of Peru, was taking vigorous 
steps to win Chili back for the crown. Three 
months before he had received a reinforcement of 
three thousand five hundred veterans from Spain, 
and these he sent to southern Chili to join the 
forces still in arms. United, they formed an army 
of about six thousand, under General Osorio, the 
able commander who had subdued Chili in 1814. 
It was evident that the newly declared indepen- 
dence of Chili was to be severely tried. 

In fact, on the first meeting of the armies it 
seemed overthrown. On the 19th of March San 
Martin' s army, while in camp near Talca, was un- 
expectedly and violently attacked by the royalist 
troops, the onslaught being so sudden and furious, 
and the storm of cannon and musket shot so rapid 



THE HANNIBAL OF THE ANDES. 251 

and heavy, that the patriot troops were stricken 
with panic, their divisions firing at each other as 
well as at the enemy. Within fifteen minutes the 
whole army was in full flight. The leaders bravely 
sought to stop the demoralized troops, but in vain, 
O'Higgins, though severely wounded, throwing 
himself before them without effect. Nothing could 
check them, and the defeat became in large measure 
a total rout. 

"When news of this disaster reached Santiago utter 
consternation prevailed. Patriots hastily gathered 
their valuables for flight ; carriages of those seek- 
ing to leave the country thronged the streets ; women 
wrung their hands in wild despair; the funds of the 
treasury were got ready to load on mules; the 
whole city was in a state of terrible anxiety. 

Several days passed before it was known what 
had become of San Martin. Then news arrived 
that he was at San Fernando at the head of the 
right wing, three thousand strong. These had 
escaped the panic on account of two divisions of 
Osorio' s army mistaking each other for the enemy 
and firing into their own ranks. In the confusion 
that ensued the right wing was led unbroken from 
the field. Also a dashing young cavalry officer 
named Rodriguez had done good work in checking 
the flight of the fugitives, and in a brief time 
had organized a regiment which he named the 
"Hussars of Death." 

Six days after the defeat General O'Higgins 
made his appearance in Santiago. He was badly 



252 Historical tales. 

wounded, but was at once named dictator of the 
republic. The next day San Martin, with a few of 
his officers, entered the city. Wearied and dusty 
with travel as he was, his cheery cry of ' ' La patria 
triunfa' ' gave new heart to the people. For several 
days fragments of the routed army came pouring 
in, and ten days after the battle Colonel Las Heras 
arrived with the three thousand of the right wing. 
The patriot cause seemed far less hopeless than had 
been the case a week before. 

Yet it was evident that liberty could come only 
from strenuous exertion, and the people of wealth 
freely subscribed of their money, plate, and jewels 
for the cause. It was not long before a new army 
five thousand five hundred strong, freshly clothed 
and in fair fighting condition, was gathered in a 
camp near the city. The artillery lost in the 
flight could not be replaced, but a few field-pieces 
were secured. San Martin and O'Higgins, with 
other able officers, were in command, and hope 
once more began to dawn upon despair. 

The enemy was known to be approaching, and the 
army was moved to a point about nine miles from 
the capital, occupying a location known as the farm 
of Espejo, where the coming enemy was awaited. 
On the afternoon of April 3, Osorio crossed the 
Maypo, the patriot cavalry harassing his flank 
and rear as he advanced. On the 5th his army 
took up a position on the brow of a hill opposite 
that occupied by the patriot forces. 

Passing out from Santiago there is a succession 



THE HANNIBAL OF THE ANDES. 253 

of white hills, known as the Lorna Elanca, on one 
crest of which, commanding the roads to the fords 
of the Maypo and to Santiago, the patriot army- 
was encamped. The royalists occupied the crest 
and slope of an opposite ridge. Below them ran 
the Maypo with its forests and hills. 

As the sun rose on the morning of the 5th San 
Martin saw with satisfaction the royalist force be- 
ginning to occupy the high ground in his front. 
With hopeful tone, he said, "I take the sun to 
witness that the day is ours." As he spoke, the 
golden rays spread like a banner of light from crest 
to crest. At ten o'clock when the movement of 
the armies began, he said, with assurance, ' ' A half- 
hour will decide the fate of Chili. ' ' 

A few words will serve to describe the positions 
of the armies. Each was more than five thousand 
strong, the patriot army somewhat the smaller. 
It had been greatly reduced by its recent defeat, 
the memory of which also hung about it like a 
cloud, while the royalists were filled with enthu- 
siasm from their late victory. The royalist lines 
were about a mile in length, four squadrons of 
dragoons flanking their right wing and a body of 
lancers their left, while a battery occupied a hill 
on the extreme left. Confronting them were the 
patriots, the left commanded by General Alverado, 
the centre by Balcarce, the right by Las Heras, 
while Quintana headed the reserves. 

The battle opened with a brisk fire from the 
patriot artillery, and in about an hour the infantry 



254 HISTORICAL TALES. 

forces joined in full action. As the royalists moved 
down the hill they were swept with the fire of the 
patriot battery, while shortly afterwards the royal 
battery on the left was captured by a dashing 
cavalry charge and the guns were turned against 
their own line. 

The centre of the battle was a farm-house on the 
Espejo estate, which was charged furiously by both 
sides, being taken and retaken several times during 
the day. Yet as the day went on the advantage 
seemed to be on the side of Osorio, who held the 
field with the centre and one wing of his army. 
Defeat seemed the approaching fate of the patriots. 
It came nearer when the regiment of negroes which 
had for some time withstood the Burgos regiment — 
the flower of Osorio' s force — gave way and re- 
treated, leaving four hundred of its number stretched 
upon the field. 

The critical moment of the battle was now at 
hand. The Burgos regiment attempted to follow 
up its success by forming itself into a square for a 
decisive charge. In doing so the Spanish lines 
were broken and thrown into temporary disorder. 
Colonel O'Brien, a gallant cavalry officer of Irish 
blood, took quick advantage of this. Joining his 
troops with Quintana' s reserves, he broke in a fierce 
charge upon the Burgos regiment while in the act 
of reforming and drove it back in complete con- 
fusion. 

This defeat of the choice corps of Osorio' s army 
changed the whole aspect of affairs. The patriots, 



THE HANNIBAL OF THE ANDES. 255 

inspired with hope, boldly advanced and pressed 
their foes at all points. The Burgos troops sought 
refuge in the farm-house, and were followed by the 
left, which was similarly broken and dispersed. 
The centre kept up the action for a time, but with 
both wings in retreat it also was soon forced back, 
and the whole royalist army was demoralized. 

The patriots did not fail to press their advantage 
to the utmost. On all sides the royalists were cut 
down or captured, until nearly half their force were 
killed and wounded and most of the remainder taken 
prisoners. A stand was made by those at the farm 
house, but they were soon driven out, and about 
five hundred of them killed and wounded in the 
court and vineyard adjoining. Of the total army 
less than three hundred escaped, General Osorio 
and some other officers among them. These fled to 
Concepcion, and embarked from there to Peru. Of 
the patriots more than a thousand had fallen in the 
hot engagement. 

This brilliant and decisive victory, known as the 
battle of the Maypo, gave San Martin immense 
renown, and justly so, for it established the inde- 
pendence of Chili. Nor was that all, for it broke 
the power which Abascal had long sustained in 
Peru, and opened the way for the freeing of that 
land from the rule of Spain. 

This feat also was the work of San Martin, who 
soon after invaded Peru, and, aided by a Chilian 
fleet, conquered that land from Spain, proclaiming 
its independence to the people of Cuzco on the 28th 



256 HISTORICAL TALES. 

of July, 1821. Later on, indeed, its freedom was 
seriously threatened, and it was not until 1824 that 
General Bolivar finally won independence for Peru, 
in the victory of Ayacucho. Yet, famous as Boli- 
var became as the Liberator of South America, 
some generous portion of fame should rightly be 
accorded to San Martin, the Liberator of Chili. 



COLONY, EMPIRE, AND REPUB- 
LIC; REVOLUTION IN BRAZIL. 

While the Spanish colonies of South America 
were battling for their liberties, the great Portu- 
guese colony of Brazil was going through a very 
different experience. Bolivar and his compatriots 
were seeking to drive Spain out of America. On 
the contrary, we have the curious spectacle of 
Brazil swallowing Portugal, or at least its king 
and its throne, so that, for a time, the colony 
became the state, and the state became the depen- 
dency. It was a marked instance of the tail 
wagging the dog. Brazil became the one empire 
in America, and was destined not to become a re- 
public until many years later. Such are the themes 
with which we here propose to deal. 

To begin this tale we must go back to those 
stirring times in Europe when Napoleon, the great 
conqueror, was in the height of his career, and 
was disposing of countries at his will, much as a 
chess-player moves the king, queen, and knights 
upon his board. In 1807 one of his armies, led by 
Marshal Junot, was marching on Lisbon, with the 
purpose of punishing Portugal for the crime of 
being a friend of the English realm. 

John, then the prince regent of Portugal, was a 
weak-minded, feeble specimen of royalty, who did 
17 257 



258 HISTORICAL TALES. 

not keep of one mind two days together. Now he 
clung to England; now, scared by Napoleon, he 
claimed to be a friend of France; and thus he 
shifted back and forward until the French despot 
sent an army to his kingdom to help him make up 
his mind. The people were ready to fight for their 
country, but the prince still wobbled between two 
opinions, until Junot had crossed the borders and 
was fast making his way to Lisbon. 

Prince John was now in a pitiable state. He shed 
tears over the fate of his country, but, as for himself, 
he wanted badly to save his precious person. Across 
the seas lay the great Portuguese colony of Brazil, 
in whose vast forest area he might find a safe 
refuge. The terrible French were close at hand. 
He must be a captive or a fugitive. In all haste 
he and his court had their treasures carried on a 
man-of-war in the Lisbon harbor and prepared for 
flight. Most of the nobility of the country fol- 
lowed him on shipboard, the total hegira embracing 
fifteen thousand persons, who took with them valu- 
ables worth fifty millions of dollars. On November 
27, 1807, the fleet set sail, leaving the harbor just as 
the advance guard of the French came near enough 
to gaze on its swelling sails. It was a remarkable 
spectacle, one rarely seen in the history of the 
world, that of a monarch fleeing from his country 
with his nobility and treasures, to transfer his gov- 
ernment to a distant colony of the realm. 

Six weeks later the fugitives landed in Brazil, 
where they were received with an enthusiastic show 



COLONY, EMPIRE, AND REPUBLIC. 259 

of loyalty and devotion. John well repaid the loyal 
colonists by lifting their country into the condition 
of a separate nation. Its ports, hitherto reserved 
for Portuguese ships, were opened to the world' s 
commerce ; its system of seclusion and monopoly 
was brought to a sudden end ; manufactures were 
set free from their fetters ; a national bank was 
established; Brazil was thrown open freely to 
foreigners ; schools and a medical college were 
opened, and every colonial restriction was swept 
away at a blow. Brazil was raised from a de- 
pendency to a kingdom at a word. John, while 
bearing the title of prince, was practically king, 
for his mother, the queen of Portugal, was hope- 
lessly insane, and he ruled in her stead. 

He became actual king, as John VI. , on the 
death of his mother in 1816, and as such he soon 
found trouble growing up around him. The Bra- 
zilians had been given so much that they wanted 
more. The opening of their country to commerce 
and travel had let in new ideas, and the people 
began to discover that they were the slaves of an 
absolute government. This feeling of unrest passed 
out of sight for a time, and first broke out in re- 
bellion at Pernambuco in 1817. This was put 
down, but a wider revolt came on in 1820, and 
spread early in the next year to Rio de Janeiro, 
the capital, whose people demanded of their ruler 
a liberal constitution. 

A great crowd assembled in the streets, the fright- 
ened monarch taking refuge in his palace in the sub- 



260 HISTORICAL TALES. 

urbs, where he lay trembling with fear. Fortunately, 
his son, Prince Pedro, was a man of more resolute 
character, and he quieted the people by swearing 
that his father and himself would accept the con- 
stitution they offered. Full of joy, the throng 
marched with enthusiasm to the palace of the king, 
who on seeing them approach was not sure whether 
he was to be garroted or guillotined. Forced to 
get into his carriage, he quite mistook their mean- 
ing, and fell into a paroxysm of terror when the 
people took out the horses that they might draw 
him to the city with their own hands. He actually 
fainted from fright, and when his senses came 
back, he sat sobbing and snivelling, protesting that 
he would agree to anything, — anything his dear 
people wanted. 

King John by this time had had quite enough of 
Brazil and the Brazilians. As soon as he could de- 
cide on anything, he determined to take his throne 
and his crown back to Portugal, whence he had 
brought them fourteen years before, leaving his son 
Pedro — young, ardent, and popular — to take care 
of Brazil in his stead. 

But the people were not satisfied to let him go 
until he had given his royal warrant to the new 
constitution, and just before he was ready to de- 
part a crowd gathered round the palace, demanding 
that he should give his assent to the charter of the 
people' s rights. He had never read it, and likely 
knew very little what it was about, but he signed 
what they asked for, all the same, and then made 



COLONY, EMPIRE, AND REPUBLIC. 261 

haste on shipboard, leaving Prince Pedro as regent, 
and as glad to get away from his loyal Brazilians as 
he had once before been to get away from Junot 
and his Frenchmen. 

Brazil again became a colony of Portugal, but it 
was not long to remain so. The Cortes of Portugal 
grew anxious to milk the colonial cow, and passed 
laws to bring Brazil again under despotic control. 
One of these required the young prince to leave 
Brazil. They were laying plans to throw the great 
colony back into its former state. 

When news of these acts reached Bio the city 
broke into a tumult. Pedro was begged not to 
abandon his loving people, and he agreed — thus 
defying the Cortes and its orders. This was on 
January 9, 1822. The Cortes next, to carry out its 
work for the subjugation of Brazil, sent a squadron 
to bring back the prince. This forced him to take 
a decided stand. On May 13 he took the title of 
"Perpetual Defender and Protector of Brazil;" 
and on the 7th of September, when word came that 
the Cortes had taken still more violent action, he 
drew his sword in the presence of a party of revo- 
lutionists, with the exclamation, ' ' Independence or 
Death." On the 12th of the following month he 
was solemnly crowned as Pedro I. , " Constitutional 
Emperor of Brazil," and the revolution was con- 
summated. Within less than a year thereafter not 
a hostile Portuguese soldier remained in Brazil, and 
it had taken its place definitely among the nations 
of Am erica. 



262 HISTORICAL TALES. 

This is but half the story of Brazil' s struggle for 
freedom. It seems advisable to tell the other half, 
which took place in 1889, sixty-seven years after 
the first revolution. The first made Brazil an in- 
dependent empire. The second made it a republic, 
and brought it into line with the republican nations 
of America. And in connection therewith a pe- 
culiar fate attended the establishment of monarchy 
in Brazil. We have seen how John, the first em- 
peror, ' ' left his country for the country' s good. ' ' 
The same was the case with his two successors, 
Pedro I. and Pedro II. 

Pedro I. took the throne with loud-mouthed 
declarations of his aspirations for liberty. He was 
going to be a second "Washington. But it was all 
empty talk, the outpourings of a weak brain, a mere 
dramatic posing, to which he was given. His ardor 
for liberty soon cooled, and it was not long before 
he was treating the people like a despot. The con- 
stitution promised was not given until it was fairly 
forced from him, and then it proved to be a worth- 
less document, made only to be disregarded. A 
congress was called into being, but the emperor 
wished to confine its functions to the increase 
of the taxes, and matters went on from bad to 
worse until by 1831 the indignation of the people 
grew intense. The troops were in sympathy with 
the multitude, and the emperor, finding that he 
stood alone against the country, finally abdicated 
the throne in haste in favor of his infant son. He 
took refuge on a British warship in the harbor, and 



COLONY, EMPIRE, AND REPUBLIC. 263 

left the country never to return. The remainder 
of his short life was spent as king of Portugal. 

Dom Pedro II. was a very different man from 
his father. Studious, liberal, high-minded, he did 
not, like his father, stand in the way of the con- 
gress and its powers. But for all his liberality, 
Brazil was not satisfied. All around it were repub- 
lics, and the spirit of republicanism invaded the 
empire and grew apace. From the people it made 
its way into the army, and in time it began to look 
as if no other emperor would be permitted to suc- 
ceed Dom Pedro on the throne. By this time he 
was growing old and feeble and there was a general 
feeling that he ought to be left to end his reign 
undisturbed, and the republic be founded on his 
grave. Unfortunately for him, many began to be- 
lieve that a plot was in the air to make him give up 
the throne to his daughter, Isabel. She was un- 
popular, and her husband, the Count d'Eu, was 
hated, and when the ministry began to send the 
military away from the capital, as if to carry out 
such a plot, an outbreak came. 

Its leaders were Benjamin Constant, a professor 
in the military school at Eio, and Marshal Deodoro 
de Fonsaca, one of the leading officers of the army. 
There was one brigade they could count on, — the 
second, — and all the forces in Eio were republican 
in sentiment. 

On the 14th of November, 1889, a rumor spread 
about that Constant and Deodoro were to be arrested 
and the disaffected soldiers to be sent away. It was 



264 HISTORICAL TALES. 

time to strike. Early the next morning Constant 
rode out to the quarters of the Second Brigade, called 
it out, and led it to the great square in front of the 
War Department building. Deodoro took command 
and sent an officer into the building to demand the 
surrender of the ministry. They yielded, and tele- 
graphed their resignation to the emperor, who was 
at Petropolis, twenty-five miles away in the moun- 
tains. 

The revolution was phenomenally successful. 
When the other troops in the city heard of the 
revolt, they marched, cheering, through the streets 
to join the Second Brigade, while the people, who 
did not dream of what was afoot, looked on in 
astonishment. No one thought of resisting, and 
when Dom Pedro reached the city at three o'clock 
in the afternoon, it was to find that he was no longer 
emperor. A provisional government had been or- 
ganized, the chiefs of the revolution had named 
themselves ministers, and they had taken posses- 
sion of the public buildings. A decree was issued 
that Brazil had ceased to be an empire and had be- 
come a federal republic. 

So great a change has rarely been accomplished 
so easily. A few friends visited the emperor, but 
there was no one to strike a blow for him. And the 
feeble old man cared too little for power to wish to 
be kept on the throne by the shedding of blood. 
That night word was sent him that he had been 
deposed and would be compelled to leave the coun- 
try with his family. During the next night the 



COLONY, EMPIRE, AND REPUBLIC. 265 

royal victims of the revolution were sent on ship- 
board and their voyage to Lisbon began. Thus 
was the third emperor sent out of Brazil through a 
bloodless revolution. 

Yet the reaction was to come. A federal republic 
was organized, with a constitution closely like that 
of the United States. But the men at the head of 
government had the army at their back and were 
rather military dictators than presidents, and it 
was not long before rebellions broke out in some of 
the states. For three years there was war between 
the two factions of the people, with frightful de- 
struction of life and property. Then, in Septem- 
ber, 1893, the navy rebelled. 

The navy had always been officered by aristo- 
crats, and looked with contempt upon the army. 
At its head was Admiral Mello; his ships lay in the 
harbor of Eio, and their guns commanded the city. 
It soon became evident that it was the purpose of 
Mello and his fellows to re-establish the empire and 
bring back Dom Pedro to the throne. 

But the rebel admiral found himself in a difficult 
situation. He hesitated about bombarding the city, 
which was full of his friends. Floriano, the pres- 
ident, filled the forts with soldiers, and the naval 
officers had much trouble to obtain supplies. Mello, 
finding himself in a dilemma, left the harbor with 
one of his ironclads and went to Santa Catharina. 
Saraiva, an able chief of his party, invaded this 
and the neighboring districts, but he was hotly pur- 
sued and his forces defeated, and Mello returned to 



266 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Eio without having gained any advantage. Here 
he found his position a very awkward one. The 
rebels were all afloat. They had nothing to gain 
by bombarding the city. The best they could do 
was to try and establish a commercial blockade, so 
as to force the government to terms, and in doing 
this Mello found himself running up against the 
power of the United States. 

We have given these incidents not so much for 
the interest they may have in themselves, but be- 
cause they lead up to a dramatic finale which seems 
worth relating. There were warships of several 
nations in the harbor, the officers of most of which 
accorded the rights of belligerents to the rebel navy, 
though it had not a foot of land under its control. 
Saldana da Grama, then in command of the ships, 
refused permission to any merchant vessel to go to 
the wharves to deliver its cargo, threatening to fire 
on any one that should venture. Thus the fleet 
of merchantmen was forced to lie out in the bay 
and await the end of the war, in spite of the fact 
that yellow fever was making havoc among the 
crews. 

The captains of the American merchant ships 
applied for protection to the senior American officer 
present, but he refused to interfere, and the com- 
mercial blockade went on. Such was the state of 
affairs when the United States Admiral Andrew E. 
Benham appeared in the harbor and took in the 
situation. He was a man to accept responsibil- 
ities. 



COLONY. EMPIRE, AND REPUBLIC. 267 

"Go in, " he said to the American captains. 
" Trust to me to protect you from attack or to 
revenge you if injured. " 

This promise put new spirit into the captains. 
Captain Blackford, of the barque ' ' Amy,' ' and two 
other captains, gave notice on Sunday, January 29, 
1894, that they would take their ships in to the 
wharves the next morning. When Da Gama heard 
of this he announced that he would fire on any 
vessel that dared attempt it. 

When Monday morning dawned there was a 
state of excitement in Eio Janeiro harbor. Da 
Gama might keep his word, and what would the 
American admiral do in that event? The com- 
manders of the other war- vessels looked on with 
interest and anxiety. They soon saw that Benham 
meant business. The dawn of day showed active 
movements in the small American squadron. The 
ships were clearing for action, and the cruiser 
1 1 Detroit' ' took a position from which she could 
command two of Da Gama' s vessels, the ' ' Guana- 
bara' ' and the ' ' Trajano. ' ' 

When the ' ' Detroit' ' was in position, the l ' Amy' ' 
began to warp in towards the pier. A musket-shot 
came in warning from the deck of the ' ' Guanabara. ' ' 
Instantly from the 1 1 Detroit' ' a ball hurtled past 
the bow of the Brazilian ship. A second followed 
that struck her side. Seeing that two Brazilian 
tugs were moving inward as if with intent to ram 
his vessel, Captain Brownson of the "Detroit" 
took his ship in between the two Brazilian war- 



268 HISTORICAL TALES. 

vessels, in a position to rake them and their sup- 
porting tugs. 

This decisive act ended the affair. Da Gama's 
guns remained silent, and the ' l Amy,' ' followed by 
the other two vessels, made her way unharmed to 
the wharves. Others followed, and before night 
all the British and other merchantmen in the harbor 
were hastening in to discharge their cargoes. Ben- 
ham had brought to a quick end the ' ' intolerable 
situation' ' in Rio Janeiro harbor. 

This ended the last hope of the naval revolution- 
ists to bring Floriano to terms. Some of the iron- 
clads escaped from the harbor and fled to Santa 
Catharina, where they were captured by the re- 
publicans. A few months sufficed to bring the 
revolt to an end, and republicanism was at length 
firmly established in Brazil. 



FRAN CI A THE DICTATOR, THE 
LOUIS XL OF PARAGUAY. 

Among the varied countries of South America the 
little republic of Paraguay, clipped closely in be- 
tween Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil, presents the 
most singular history, this being due to the re- 
markable career of the dictator Francia, who ruled 
over it for a quarter of a century, and to the war- 
like energy of his successor Lopez. The tyranny 
of Francia was one of the strangest which history 
records, no man ever ruling with more absolute 
authority and more capricious cruelty. For many 
years Paraguay was completely cut off by him 
from the rest of the world, much as Japan was 
until opened to civilization by Commodore Perry. 
Unlucky was the stranger who then dared set foot on 
Paraguayan soil. Many years might pass before 
he could see the outer world again. Such was the 
fate of Bonpland, the celebrated botanist and com- 
panion of Humboldt, who rashly entered this for- 
bidden land and was forced to spend ten years 
within its locked confines. Such is the country, 
and such was the singular policy of its dictator, 
whose strange story we have here to tell. 

In May, 1811, Paraguay joined the other coun- 
tries of South America in the general revolt against 
Spain. There was here no invasion and no blood- 

269 



270 HISTORICAL TALES. 

shed; the armies of Spain were kept too busy 
elsewhere, and the revolution was accomplished in 
peace. A governing committee was formed, with 
Fulgincio Yegros for its chairman and Jose Caspar 
Eodriguez de Francia for its secretary. The first 
was a man of little ability; the latter was a man 
whose powers will soon be seen. 

The committee decreed the independence of Para- 
guay. Two years later a new convention was held, 
which dissolved the committee and elected two 
consuls, Yegros and Francia, to govern the coun- 
try. Two chairs were made for them, resembling 
the curule chairs of Eome, and called Caesar' s and 
Pompey's chairs. On entering office Francia coolly 
seated himself in Caesar's chair, leaving that of 
Pompey for his associate. This action showed the 
difference in force of character between the two 
men. 

In fact, Francia quickly took possession of all 
the powers of government. He was a true Caesar. 
He appointed a secretary of state, undertook to 
reorganize the army and the finances, and deprived 
the Spaniards in the country of all civil rights. 
This was done to gain the support of the Indian 
population, who hated the Spaniards bitterly. He 
soon went farther. Yegros was in his way and he 
got rid of him, making the simple-minded and 
ignorant members of the congress believe that only 
a sovereign magistrate could save the country, which 
was then threatened by its neighbors. In conse- 
quence, on the 8th of October, 1814, Francia was 



FRANCIA THE DICTATOR. 271 

made dictator for three years. This was not 
enough to satisfy the ambitious ruler, and he played 
his cards so shrewdly that, on the 1st of May, 1816, 
a new congress proclaimed him supreme and per- 
petual dictator. 

It was no common man who could thus induce 
the congress of a republic to raise him to absolute 
power over its members and the people. Francia 
at that time was fifty-nine years of age, a lean and 
vigorous man, of medium stature, with piercing 
black eyes, but a countenance not otherwise marked. 
The son of a Frenchman who had been a tobacco 
manufacturer in Paraguay, he was at first intended 
for the church, but subsequently studied the law. 
In this profession he had showed himself clever, elo- 
quent, and honorable, and always ready to defend 
the poor and weak against the rich. It was the 
reputation thus gained which first made him prom- 
inent in political affairs. 

Once raised to absolute power for life, Francia 
quickly began to show his innate qualities. Love 
of money was not one of his faults, and while 
strictly economical with the public funds, he was 
free-handed and generous with his own. Thus, 
of the nine thousand pesos of annual salary as- 
signed him, he would accept only three thousand, 
and made it a strict rule to receive no present, 
either returning or paying for any sent him. At 
first he went regularly every day to mass, but he 
soon gave up this show of religious faith and dis- 
missed his private chaplain. In fact, he grew to 



272 HISTORICAL TALES. 

despise religious forms, and took pleasure in ridi- 
culing the priests, saying that they talked about 
things and represented mysteries of which they 
knew nothing. "The priests and religion," he 
said, ' ' serve more to make men believe in the devil 
than in God. ' ' 

Of the leading principle of Francia's political 
system we have already spoken. It had been the 
policy of the old Jesuit missions to isolate the 
people and keep them in strict obedience to the 
priesthood, and Francia adopted a similar policy. 
Anarchy prevailed without, he said, and might 
penetrate into Paraguay. Brazil, he declared, was 
seeking to absorb the country. With these ex- 
cuses he forbade, under the severest penalties, in- 
tercourse of any character between the people of 
Paraguay and those of neighboring countries and 
the entry of any foreigner to the country under his 
rule. 

In 1826 he decreed that any one who, calling 
himself an envoy from Spain, should dare to enter 
Paraguay without authority from himself should 
be put to death and his body denied a burial. The 
same severe penalty was decreed against any native 
who received a letter speaking of political affairs 
and did not at once present it to the public tri- 
bunals. These rigid orders were probably caused 
by some mysterious movements of that period, 
which made him fear that Spain was laying plans 
to get possession of the country. 

In the same year the dictator made a new move 



FRANCIA THE DICTATOR. 273 

in the game of politics. He called into being a 
kind of national assembly, professed to submit to 
its authority, and ratified a declaration of inde- 
pendence. Just why this was done is not very 
clear. Certain negotiations were going on with the 
Spanish government, and these may have had some- 
thing to do with it. At any rate, a timely military 
conspiracy was just then discovered or manufac- 
tured, a colonel was condemned to death, and 
Francia was pressed by the assembly to resume his 
power. He consented with a show of reluctance, 
and only, as he said, till the Marquis de Guarini, 
his envoy to Spain, should return, when he would 
yield up his rule to the marquis. All this, how- 
ever, was probably a mere dramatic move, and 
Francia had no idea of yielding his power to any 
one. 

The dictator had a policy of his own — in fact, a 
double policy, one devoted to dealing with the land 
and its people ; one to dealing with his enemies or 
those who questioned his authority. The one was 
as arbitrary, the other as cruel, as that of the 
tyrants of Eome. 

The crops of Paraguay, whose wonderful soil 
yields two harvests annually, were seized by the 
dictator and stored on account of the government. 
The latter claimed ownership of two-thirds of the 
land, and a communal system was adopted under 
which Francia disposed at will of the country and 
its people. He fixed a system for the cultivation of 
the fields, and when hands were needed for the 
18 



274 HISTORICAL TALES. 

harvest he enlisted them forcibly. Yet agriculture 
made little progress under the primitive methods 
employed, a broad board serving for a plough, while 
the wheat was ground in mortars, and a piece of 
wood moved by oxen formed the sugar-mill. The 
cotton, as soon as picked from the pods, was spun 
on the spinning-wheel, and then woven by a trav- 
elling weaver, whose rude apparatus was carried on 
the back of an ox or a mule, and, when in use, 
was hung from the branch of a tree. 

Commerce was dealt with in the same way as 
agriculture. The market was under Francia' s con- 
trol, and all exchange of goods was managed under 
rules laid down by him. He found that he must 
open the country in a measure to foreign goods, if 
he wanted to develop the resources of the country, 
and a channel of commerce was opened on the 
frontier of Brazil. But soldiers vigilantly watched 
all transactions, and no one could act as a merchant 
without a license from him. He fixed a tariff on 
imports, kept them in a bazaar under military 
guard, and sold them to the people, limiting the 
amount of goods which any of his subjects could 
purchase. 

As a result of all this Francia brought about a 
complete cessation of all private action, the state 
being all, and he being the state. All dealing for 
profit was paralyzed, and agriculture and commerce 
alike made no progress. On the other hand, every- 
thing relating to war was developed. It was his 
purpose to cut off Paraguay completely from foreign 



FRANCIA THE DICTATOR. 275 

countries, and to be fully prepared to defend it 
against warlike invasion. 

Of his books, the one he most frequently consulted 
was a French dictionary of the arts and industries. 
From this he gained the idea of founding public 
workshops, in which the workmen were stimulated 
to activity alike by threats and money. At one 
time he condemned a blacksmith to hard labor for 
awkwardness. At another, when he had erected a 
gallows, he proposed to try it on a shoemaker if he 
did not do his work properly, while promising to 
richly reward him if he did. 

Military roads were laid out, the capital and 
other cities were fortified, and a new city was built 
in the north as a military post to keep the savage 
Indians under control. As for the semi-civilized 
Mission Indians, they were gradually brought under 
the yoke, made to work on the land, and enrolled 
in the army like other citizens. In this way a 
body of twenty thousand militia and five thousand 
regular troops was formed, all being well drilled 
and the army supplied with an excellent cavalry 
force. The body-guard of the dictator was made 
up of picked troops on whose fidelity he could 
rely. 

Francia dwelt in the palace of the old Spanish 
governors, tearing down adjoining houses to isolate 
it. Constantly fearful of death and danger, he did 
not trust fully to his vigilant body-guard, but 
nightly slept in a different room, so that his sleep- 
ing apartment should not be known. In this he 



276 HISTORICAL TALES. 

resembled the famous Louis XL, whom he also 
imitated in his austerity and simplicity of man- 
ners, and the fact that his principal confidant was 
his barber, — a mulatto inclined to drink. His other 
associate was Patiiios, his secretary, who made the 
public suffer for any ill-treatment from his master. 
The remainder of the despot's household consisted 
of four slaves, two men and two women. In 
dress he strove to imitate Napoleon, whom he 
greatly admired, and when drilling his troops was 
armed with a large sword and pistols. 

There remains to tell the story of the cruelties of 
this Paraguayan J^ero. With his suspicious nature 
and his absolute power, his subjects had no more 
security for their lives than those of old Pome. 
Plots against his person — which he identified with 
the state — served him as a pretext for seizing and 
shooting or imprisoning any one of whom he was 
suspicious. One of his first victims was Yegros, 
his former associate in the consulate. Accused of 
favoring an invasion of Paraguay, he and forty 
others were condemned to death in 1819. 

More than three hundred others were imprisoned 
on the same charge, and were held captive for 
eighteen months, during which they were subjected 
by the tyrant to daily tortures. The ferocious 
dictator took special pleasure in the torment of 
these unfortunates, devising tortures of his own 
and making a diversion out of his revenge. From 
his actions it has been supposed that there were 
the seeds of madness in his mind, and it is certain 



FRANCIA THE DICTATOR. 277 

that it was in his frequent fits of hypochondria 
that he issued his decrees of proscription and car- 
ried out his excesses of cruelty. 

When in this condition, sad was it for the heed- 
less wretch who omitted to address him as ' ' Your 
Excellence the Supreme, Most Excellent Lord and 
Perpetual Dictator !' ' Equally sad was it for the 
man who, wishing to speak with him, dared to 
approach too closely and did not keep his hands well 
in view, to show that he had no concealed weapons. 
Treason, daggers, and assassins seemed the perpet- 
ual tenants of Francia's thoughts. One country- 
woman was seized for coming too near his office 
window to present a petition; and he went so far, 
on one occasion, as to order his guard to fire on 
any one who dared to look at his palace. When- 
ever he went abroad a numerous escort attended 
him, and the moment he put his foot outside the 
palace the bell of the Cathedral began to toll, as a 
warning to all the inhabitants to go into their 
houses. Any one found abroad bowed his head 
nearly to the ground, not daring to lift his eyes to 
the dictator' s dreaded face. 

It is certainly extraordinary that in the nineteenth 
century, and in a little state of South America, 
there should have arisen a tyrant equal in cruelty, 
in his restricted sphere, to the Nero and Caligula 
of old or the Louis XL of mediaeval times. Death 
came to him in 1840, after twenty-six years of this 
absolute rule and in his eighty-third year. It came 
after a few days of illness, during which he at- 



278 HISTORICAL TALES. 

tended to business, refused assistance, and forbade 
any one not called by him to enter his room. Only 
the quick coming of death prevented him from 
ending his life with a crime ; for in a fit of anger at 
the curandero, a sort of quack doctor who attended 
him, he sprang from his bed, snatched up his sword, 
and rushed furiously upon the trembling wretch. 
Before he could reach his intended victim he fell 
down in a fit of apoplexy. No one dared to dis- 
regard his orders and come to his aid, and death 
soon followed. His funeral was splendid, and a 
grand mausoleum was erected to him, but this was 
thrown down by the hands of some enemies un- 
known. 

Thus ended the career of this extraordinary per- 
sonage, one of the most remarkable characters of 
the nineteenth century. Carlos Antonio Lopez, his 
nephew, succeeded him, and in 1844 was chosen as 
president of the republic for ten years, during 
which he was as absolute as his uncle. He con- 
tinued in power till his death in 1862, but put an 
end to the isolation of Paraguay, opening it to the 
world' s commerce. 

He was succeeded by his son, Solano Lopez, whom 
we mention here simply from the fact that the war 
which Francia had so diligently prepared for came 
in his time. In 1864 the question of the true 
frontier of the state brought on a war in which 
Brazil, the Argentine Eepublic, and Uruguay com- 
bined to crush the little country in their midst. 
We need only say here that Lopez displayed re- 



FRANCIA THE DICTATOR. 279 

markable powers as a soldier, appeared again and 
again in arms after seemingly crushing defeats, and 
fought off his powerful opponents for five years. 
Then, on the 1st of May, 1870, he was slain in a 
battle in which his small army was completely de- 
stroyed. Paraguay, after a valorous and gigantic 
struggle, was at the mercy of the allies. It was 
restored to national life again, but under penalty of 
the great indemnity, for so small a state, of two 
hundred and thirty-six million pesos. 



TACON THE GOVERNOR AND 
MARTI THE SMUGGLER. 

In 1834 Don Miguel Tacon, one of the most 
vigorous and tyrannical of the governor-generals 
of Cuba, took control of the island, which he ruled 
with a stern will and an iron hand. One of the 
purposes in which he was most earnest was that 
of suppressing the active smuggling on the coast, 
all the naval vessels under his command being 
ordered to patrol the coast night and day, and to 
have no mercy on these lawless worthies. As it 
proved, all his efforts were of no avail, the smug- 
glers continuing to ply their trade in spite of Tacon 
and his agents. 

The despoilers of the revenue were too daring 
and adroit, and too familiar with the shoals and 
rocks of the coast waters, to be readily caught, and 
the lack of pilots familiar with this difficult naviga- 
tion prevented any close approach to their haunts. 
In this dilemma Tacon tried the expedient of offer- 
ing a large and tempting reward to any one who 
would desert the fraternity and agree to pilot the 
government vessels through the perilous channels 
which they frequented. Double this reward, an 
almost princely prize, was offered for the person of 
one Marti, dead or alive. 

Tacon had good reason to offer a special reward 
280 



GOVERNOR TACON AND MARTI THE SMUGGLER. 281 

for the arrest of Marti, who was looked upon as 
the leader and chief offender of the smugglers. A 
daring and reckless man, notorious as a smuggler 
and half pirate, his name was as well known in 
Cuba as that of the governor-general himself The 
admirers of his daring exploits grew to know him 
as the King of the Isle of Pines, this island being 
his principal rendezvous, from which he sent his 
fleet of small, swift vessels to ply their trade on 
the neighboring coast. As for Tacon's rewards, 
they were long as ineffective as his revenue cutters 
and gunboats, and the government officials fell 
at length into a state of despair as to how they 
should deal with the nefarious and defiant band. 

One dark, dull night, several months after the 
placards offering these rewards had been posted in 
conspicuous places in Havana and elsewhere, two 
sentinels were pacing as usual before the governor's 
palace, which stood opposite the grand plaza of the 
capital city. Shortly before midnight a cloaked 
individual stealthily approached and slipped behind 
the statue of the Spanish king near the fountain in 
the plaza. From this lurking-place he watched the 
movements of the sentinels, as they walked until 
they met face to face, and then turned back to back 
for their brief walk in the opposite direction. 

It was a delicate movement to slip between the 
soldiers during the short interval when their eyes 
were turned from the entrance, but the stranger at 
length adroitly effected it, darting lightly and si- 
lently across the short space and hiding himself 



282 HISTORICAL TALES. 

behind one of the pillars of the palace before they 
turned again. During their next turn he entered 
the palace, now safe from their espionage, and 
sought the broad flight of stairs which led to the 
governor's rooms with the confidence of one thor- 
oughly familiar with the place. 

At the head of the stairs there was another 
guard to be passed, but this the stranger did with a 
formal military salute and an air of authority as if 
his right to enter was beyond question. His man- 
ner quieted all suspicion in the mind of the sentinel, 
and the newcomer entered the governor's room 
unchallenged, closing the door behind him. 

Before him sat the governor-general in a large 
easy-chair, quite alone and busily engaged in writ- 
ing. On seeing him thus unattended the weather- 
beaten face of the stranger took on a look of satis- 
faction. Evidently his secret plans had worked 
fully to his desire. Taking off his cloak, he tossed 
it over his arm, making a noise that attracted the 
governor's attention. Tacon looked up in surprise, 
fixing his eyes keenly upon his unlooked-for visitor. 

"Who is this that enters, at this late hour, 
without warning or announcement?" he sternly 
asked, looking in doubt at the unknown face. 

' ' One who brings information that the governor- 
general wants. You are he, I believe ?' ' 

"I am. What do you want? And how did 
you, a stranger, pass my guard without challenge ?' ' 

' ' That is not the question. Your Excellency, I 
understand, has offered a handsome reward to any 




THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S PALACE, HAVANA. 



GOVERNOR TACON AND MARTI THE SMUGGLER. 283 

one who will put you on the track of the rovers of 
the gulf?" 

' ' Ha ! is that your errand ?' ' exclaimed Tacon, 
with sudden interest. ' ' What know you of them ?' ' 

1 ' Excellency, I must speak with caution, ' ' said 
the stranger. ' ' I have my own safety to consider. ' ' 

1 ' That you need not fear. My offer of reward 
also carries pardon to the informant. If you are 
even a member of the confederation itself you will 
be safe in speaking freely." 

' ' I understand you offer an additional reward, a 
rich one, for the discovery of Captain Marti, the 
chief of the smugglers?" 

"I do. You may fully trust in my promise to 
reward and protect any one who puts me on the 
track of that leader of the villains. ' ' 

' c Your Excellency, I must have special assurance 
of this. Do you give me your knightly word that 
you will grant me a free pardon for all offences 
against the customs, if I tell all you wish to know, 
even to the most secret hiding-places of the rovers ?' ' 

1 ' I pledge you my full word of honor for that,' ' 
said the governor, now deeply interested. 

"You will grant me full pardon, under the 
king's seal, no matter how great my offences or 
crimes, if you call them so, may have been ?' ' 

"If what you reveal is to the purpose," said 
Tacon, wondering why his visitor was so unduly 
cautious. 

"Even if I were a leader among the rovers 
myself?" 



284 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Tacon hesitated a moment, looking closely at the 
stalwart stranger, while considering the purport of 
his words. 

' £ Yes, ' ' he said, at length. ' < If you will lead 
our ships to the haunts of Marti and his followers, 
you can fully depend on the reward and the 
pardon. ' ' 

' ' Excellency, I know you well enough to trust 
your word, or I should never have put myself in 
your power. ' ' 

"You can trust my word," said Tacon, impa- 
tiently. ' ' ISJow come to the point ; I have no time 
to waste. ' ' 

1 ' Your Excellency, the man for whom you have 
offered the largest reward, dead or alive, stands 
before you. ' ' 

' ' Ha ! you are ' ' 

"Captain Marti." 

The governor started in surprise, and laid his 
hand hastily on a pistol that lay before him. But 
he regained his self-possession in a moment, and 
solemnly said, — 

' ' I shall keep my promise, if you keep yours. 
You have offended deeply, but my word is my law. 
But to insure your faithfulness, I must put you for 
the present under guard." 

' ' As you will, your Excellency, ' ' said Marti. 

Tacon rang a bell by his side, an attendant en- 
tered, and soon after Marti was safely locked up, 
orders being given to make him comfortable until he 
was sent for. And so this strange interview ended. 



GOVERNOR TACON AND MARTI THE SMUGGLER. 285 

During the next day there was a commotion in 
the harbor of Havana. An armed revenue cutter, 
which for weeks had lain idly under the guns of 
Morro Castle, became the scene of sudden activity ; 
food, ammunition, and other stores being taken on 
board. Before noon the anchor was weighed and 
she stood out into the open sea. On her deck was 
a man unknown to captain or crew, otherwise than 
as the pilot of their cruise. Marti was keeping his 
word. 

A skilled and faithful pilot he proved, — faithful 
to them, but faithless and treacherous to his late 
comrades and followers, — for he guided the ship 
with wonderful ease and assurance through all the 
shoals and perils of the coast waters, taking her to 
the secret haunts of the rovers, and revealing their 
depots of smuggled goods and secret hiding-places. 
Many a craft of the smugglers was taken and de- 
stroyed and large quantities of their goods were 
captured, as for a month the raiding voyage con- 
tinued. The returns to the government were of 
great value and the business of the smugglers was 
effectually broken up. At its end Marti returned 
to the governor to claim the reward for his base 
treachery. 

"You have kept your word faithfully," said 
Tacon. " It is now for me to keep mine. In this 
document you will find a free and unconditional 
pardon for all the offences you have committed 
against the laws. As for your reward, here's an 
order on the treasury for ' ' 



286 HISTORICAL TALES. 

< ' Will your Excellency excuse me for inter- 
rupting?" said Marti. "I am glad to have the 
pardon. But as for the reward, I should like to 
make you a proposition in place of the money you 
offer. What I ask is that you grant me the sole 
right to fish in the waters near the city, and declare 
the trade in fish contraband to any one except my 
agents. This will repay me quite well enough for 
my service to the government, and I shall build at 
my own expense a public market of stone, which 
shall be an ornament to the city. At the expiration 
of a certain term of years this market, with all 
right and title to the fisheries, shall revert to the 
government. ' ' 

Tacon was highly pleased with this proposition. 
He would save the large sum which he had promised 
Marti, and the city would gain a fine fish-market 
without expense. So, after weighing fully all the 
pros and cons, Tacon assented to the proposition, 
granting Marti in full legal form the sole right to 
fish near the city and to sell fish in its markets. 
Marti knew far better than Tacon the value to him 
of this concession. During his life as a rover he 
had become familiar with the best fishing-grounds, 
and for years furnished the city bountifully with 
fish, reaping a very large profit upon his enterprise. 
At the close of the period of his monopoly the 
market and privileges reverted to the government. 

Marti had all he needed, and was now a man of 
large wealth. How he should invest it was the 
question that next concerned him. He finally de- 



GOVERNOR TACON AND MARTI THE SMUGGLER. 287 

cided to try and obtain the monopoly of theatrical 
performances in Havana on condition of building 
there one of the largest and finest theatres in the 
world. This was done, paying the speculator a 
large interest on his wealth, and he died at length 
rich and honored, his money serving as a grave- 
stone for his sins. 



KEARNEY'S DARING EXPEDI- 
TION AND THE CONQUEST OF 
NEW MEXICO. 

We have told the story of the remarkable expedi- 
tion of Yasquez de Coronado from Mexico north- 
ward to the prairies of Kansas. We have now to 
tell the story of an expedition which took place 
three centuries later from this prairie land to the 
once famous region of the ' ' Seven Cities of Cibola. ' ' 
In 1542, when Coronado traversed this region, he 
found it inhabited by tribes of wandering savages, 
living in rude wigwams. In 1846, when the return 
expedition set out, it came from a land of fruitful 
farms and populous cities. Yet it was to pass 
through a country as wild and uncultivated as that 
which the Spaniards had traversed three centuries 
before. 

The invasion of Mexico by the United States 
armies in 1846 was made in several divisions, one 
being known as the Army of the West, led by 
Colonel Stephen W. Kearney. He was to march 
to Santa Fe, seize New Mexico, and then push on 
and occupy California, both of which were then 
provinces of Mexico. It was an expedition in which 
the soldiers would have to fight far more with 
nature than with man, and force their way through 
288 



KEARNEY AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. 289 

desolate regions and over deserts rarely trodden by 
the human foot. 

The invading army made its rendezvous at Fort 
Leavenworth, on the Missouri River, in the month 
of June, 1846. It consisted of something over six- 
teen hundred men, all from Missouri, and all 
mounted except one battalion of infantry. Accom- 
panying it were sixteen pieces of artillery. A 
march of two thousand miles in length lay before 
this small corps, much of it through the land of the 
enemy, where much larger forces were likely to 
be met. Before the adventurers, after the green 
prairies had been passed, lay hot and treeless plains 
and mountain -ranges in whose passes the wintry 
snow still lingered, while savage tribes and hostile 
Mexicans, whose numbers were unknown, might 
make their path one of woe and slaughter. Those 
who gathered to see them start looked upon them 
as heroes who might never see their homes again. 

On the 26th of June the main body of the expe- 
dition began its march, taking the trail of a provi- 
sion train of two hundred wagons and two compa- 
nies of cavalry sent in advance, and followed, three 
days later, by Kearney with the rear. For the first 
time in history an army under the American stand- 
ard, and with all the bravery of glittering guns and 
floating flags, was traversing those ancient plains. 
For years the Santa Fe trail had been a synonym 
for deeds of horror, including famine, bloodshed, 
and frightful scenes of Indian cruelty. The bones 
of men and of beasts of burden paved the way, and 
19 



290 HISTORICAL TALES. 

served as a gruesome pathway for the long line of 
marching troops. 

The early route led, now through thick timber, 
now over plains carpeted with tall grasses, now 
across ravines or creeks, now through soft ground 
in which the laden wagons sank to their axles, and 
tried the horses severely to pull them out. To draw 
the heavy wagons up the steep ridges of the table- 
lands the tugging strength of a hundred men were 
sometimes needed. 

Summer was now on the land, and for days to- 
gether the heat was almost unbearable. There was 
trouble, too, with the cavalry horses, raw animals, 
unused to their new trappings and discipline, and 
which often broke loose and scampered away, only 
to be caught by dint of weary pursuit and profane 
ejaculations. 

For six hundred miles the column traversed the 
great Santa Fe trail without sight of habitation and 
over a dreary expanse, no break to the monotony 
appearing until their glad eyes beheld the fertile 
and flowery prairies surrounding Fort Bent on the 
Arkansas. Here was a rich and well-watered level, 
with clumps of trees and refreshing streams, form- 
ing convenient halting-places for rest and bathing. 
As yet there had been no want of food, a large 
merchant train of food wagons having set out in 
advance of their own provision train, and for a 
few days life ceased to be a burden and became a 
pleasure. 

They needed this refreshment sadly, for the jour- 



KEARNEY AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. 291 

ney to Fort Bent had been one of toil and hardships, 
of burning suns, and the fatigue of endless dreary 
miles. The wagon-trains were often far in advance 
and food at times grew scanty, while the scarcity 
of fuel made it difficult to warm their sparse sup- 
plies. During part of the journey they were 
drenched by heavy rains. To these succeeded days 
of scorchingly hot weather, bringing thirst in its 
train and desert mirages which cheated their suffer- 
ing souls. When at length the Arkansas Eiver was 
reached, men and animals alike rushed madly into 
its waters to slake their torment of thirst. 

At times their route led through great herds of 
grazing buffaloes which supplied the hungry men 
with sumptuous fare, but most of the time they 
were forced to trust to the steadily diminishing stores 
of the provision wagons. This was especially the 
case when they left the grassy and flowery prairie 
and entered upon an arid plain, on which for months 
of the year no drop of rain or dew fell, while the 
whitened bones of men and beasts told of former 
havoc of starvation and drouth. The heated surface 
was in places incrusted with alkaline earth worn 
into ash-like dust, or paved with pebbles blistering 
hot to the feet. At times these were diversified by 
variegated ridges of sandstone, blue, red, and yellow 
in hue. 

A brief period of rest was enjoyed at Fort Bent, 
but on the 2d of August the column was on the 
trail again, the sick and worn-out being left behind. 
As they proceeded the desert grew more arid still. 



292 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Neither grass nor shrubs was to be found for the 
famishing animals ; the water, what little there was, 
proved to be muddy and bitter; the wheels sank 
deep in the pulverized soil, and men and beasts alike 
were nearly suffocated by the clouds of dust that 
blew into their eyes, nostrils, and mouths. Glad 
were they when, after three days of this frightful 
passage, they halted on the welcome banks of the 
Purgatoire, a cool mountain-stream, and saw rising 
before them the snowy summits of the lofty Cim- 
maron and Spanish peaks and knew that the desert 
was passed. 

The sight of the rugged mountains infused new 
energy into their weary souls, and it was with fresh 
spirit that they climbed the rough hills leading up- 
ward towards the Ratan Pass, emerging at length 
into a grand mountain amphitheatre closed in with 
steep walls of basalt and granite. They seemed to 
be in a splendid mountain temple, in which they 
enjoyed their first Sunday' s rest since they had left 
Port Leavenworth. 

The food supply had now fallen so low that the 
rations of the men were reduced to one -third the 
usual quantity. But the new hope in their hearts 
helped them to endure this severe privation, and 
they made their way rapidly through the mountain 
gorges and over the plains beyond, covering from 
seventeen to twenty-five miles a day. Ammunition 
had diminished as well as food, and the men were 
forbidden to waste any on game, for news had been 
received that the Mexicans were gathering to dis- 



KEARNEY AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. 293 

pute their path and all their powder and shot might 
be needed. 

The vicinity of the Mexican settlements was 
reached on August 14, and their desert-weary eyes 
beheld with joy the first cornfields and gardens 
surrounding the farm-houses in the valleys, while 
groves of cedar and pine diversified the scene. 
With new animation the troops marched on, elated 
with the tidings which now reached them from the 
north, that Colonel Kearney had been raised to the 
rank of brigadier-general, and a second item of 
news to the effect that two thousand Mexicans held 
the canon six miles beyond Las Yegas, prepared 
to dispute its passage. 

This was what they had come for, and it was a 
welcome diversion to learn that the weariness of 
marching was likely to be diversified by a season 
of fighting. They had made the longest march 
ever achieved by an American army, nearly all of 
it through a barren and inhospitable country, and 
it was with genuine elation that they pressed for- 
ward to the canon, hopeful of having a brush with 
the enemy. They met with a genuine disappoint- 
ment when they found the pass empty of foes. 
The Mexicans had failed to await their coming. 

Kearney had already begun his prescribed work 
of annexing New Mexico to the United States, the 
Alcalde and the prominent citizens of Las Yegas 
having taken an oath of allegiance to the laws 
and government of the United States. As they 
marched on, a similar oath was administered at San 



294 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Miguel and Pecos, and willingly taken. Here the 
soldiers fairly revelled in the fresh vegetables, 
milk, eggs, fruits, and chickens which the inhab- 
itants were glad to exchange for the money of their 
new guests. Orders had been given that all food 
and forage obtained from the peaceable inhabitants 
should be paid for, and Kearney saw that this was 
done. 

At Pecos they had their first experience of the 
antiquities of the land. Here was the traditional 
birthplace of the great Montezuma, the ancient tem- 
ple still standing whose sacred fire had been kindled 
by that famous monarch, and kept burning for 
long years after his death, in the hope that he 
would come again to deliver his people from bond- 
age. At length, as tradition held, the fire was 
extinguished by accident, and the temple and vil- 
lage were abandoned. The walls of the temple 
still stood, six feet thick, and covering with their 
rooms and passages a considerable space. The 
Pueblo Indians of the region had refused to fight 
for the Mexicans, for tradition told them that a 
people would come from the East to free them from 
Spanish rule, and the prophecy now seemed about 
to be fulfilled. 

The next hostile news that reached the small 
army was to the effect that seven thousand Mex- 
icans awaited them in Gallisteo Canon, fifteen miles 
from Santa Fe. This was far from agreeable 
tidings, since the Mexicans far outnumbered the 
Americans, while the pass was so narrow that a 



KEARNEY AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. 295 

much smaller force might have easily defended it 
against a numerous foe. The pass had been forti- 
fied and the works there mounted with six pieces of 
cannon, placed to make havoc in the invaders' 
ranks. 

Fortunately, once more the advancing troops 
found a strong pass undefended. The Mexican 
officers had quarrelled, and the privates, who felt no 
enmity towards the Americans, had left them to 
fight it out between themselves. Deserted by his 
soldiers, Governor Armijo escaped with a few dra- 
goons, and the Americans marched unmolested 
through the pass. On the same day they reached 
Santa Fe, taking peaceful possession of the capital 
of New Mexico and the whole surrounding country 
in the name of the United States. 

Not for an hour had the men halted that day, the 
last of their wearisome march of nine hundred 
miles, which had been completed in about fifty days. 
So exhausting had this final day's march proved 
that many of the animals sank down to die, and 
the men flung themselves on the bare hill-side, with- 
out food or drink, glad to snatch a few hours of sleep. 
As the flag of the United States was hoisted in the 
public square, a national salute of twenty-eight 
guns was fired from a near-by hill, and the cavalry 
rode with waving banners and loud cheers through 
the streets. They had cause for great gratulation, 
for they had achieved a remarkable feat and had 
won a great province without the loss of a single 
man in battle. 



296 HISTORICAL TALES. 

By the orders of General Kearney a flag-staff 
one hundred feet high was raised in the plaza for 
the American flag, and the oath of allegience was 
taken by the officials of the town. They were 
willing enough to take it, since their new masters 
left them in office, while the people, who had been 
told that they would be robbed and mercilessly 
treated, hailed the Americans as deliverers rather 
than as enemies. The same was the case with all 
the surrounding people, who, when they found that 
they would be paid for their provisions and be left 
secure in their homes, settled down in seeming high 
good will under the new rule. 

Santa Fe at that time contained about six thou- 
sand inhabitants. After St. Augustine it was the 
oldest city within the limits of the United States. 
When the Spaniards founded it in 1582, it was 
built on the site of one of the old Indian pueblos, 
whose date went back to the earliest history of the 
country. The Spanish town — The Eoyal City of 
the Holy Faith, La Villa Real del Santa Fe, as they 
called it — was also full of the flavor of antiquity, 
with its low adobe houses, and its quaint old 
churches, built nearly three centuries before. 
These were of rude architecture and hung with 
battered old bells, but they were ornamented with 
curiously carved beams of cedar and oak. The 
residences were as quaint and old-fashioned as the 
churches, and the abundant relics of the more 
ancient Indian inhabitants gave the charm of a 
double antiquity to the place. 




I* 



KEARNEY AND THE CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO. 297 

From Santa Fe as a centre General Kearney sent 
out expeditions to put down all reported risings 
through the province, one of the most important 
of these being to the country of the warlike Navajo 
Indians, who had just made a raid on New Mexico, 
driving off ten thousand cattle and taking many 
captives. The answer of one of the Navajo chiefs 
to the officers of the expedition is interesting. 

"Americans, you have a strange cause of war 
against the Navajos," he said. " "We have waged 
war against the New Mexicans for several years. 
You now turn upon us for attempting to do what 
you have done yourselves. We cannot see why 
you have cause of quarrel with us for fighting the 
New Mexicans in the West, while you do the same 
thing in the East. We have no more right to com- 
plain of you for interfering in our war than you 
have to quarrel with us for continuing a war we 
had begun long before you got here. If you will 
act justly, you will allow us to settle our own dif- 
ferences. ' ' 

The Indians, however, in the end agreed to let 
the New Mexicans alone, as American citizens, and 
the matter was amicably settled. We may briefly 
conclude the story of Kearney' s expedition, which 
was but half done when Santa Fe was reached. 
He was to continue his march to California, and set 
out for this purpose on the 25th of September, on 
a journey as long and difficult as that he had 
already made. He reached the Californian soil only 
to find that Colonel Fremont had nearly finished 



298 HISTORICAL TALES. 

the work set for him, and a little more fighting 
added the great province of California to the Amer- 
ican conquests. Thus had a small body of men oc- 
cupied and conquered a vast section of northern 
Mexico and added some of its richest possessions to 
the United States. 






THE SECOND CONQUEST OF THE 
CAPITAL OF MEXICO. 

The ancient city of Mexico, the capital of the 
Aztecs and their Spanish successors, has been the 
scene of two great military events, its siege and cap- 
ture by Cortez the conqueror in 1521, and its cap- 
ture by the American army under General Scott in 
1847, three and a quarter centuries later. Of the 
remarkable career of Cortez we have given the 
most striking incident, the story of the thrilling 
Noche triste and the victory of Otumba. A series 
of interesting tales might have been told of the 
siege that followed, but we prefer to leave that 
period of mediaeval cruelty and injustice and come 
down to the events of a more civilized age. 

One of the most striking scenes in the campaign 
of 1847 was the taking of the fortified hill of Cha- 
pultepec, but before describing this we may briefly 
outline the events of which it formed the dramatic 
culmination. Yera Cruz, "the city of the True 
Cross," founded by Cortez in 1520, was the scene 
of the American landing, and was captured by the 
army under General Scott in March, 1847. Then, 
marching inland as Cortez had done more than 
three centuries before, the American army, about 
twelve thousand strong, soon began to ascend the 

299 



300 HISTORICAL TALES. 

mountain-slope leading from the torrid sea-level 
plain to the high table -land of the old Aztec realm. 

Sixty miles from Yera Cruz the American forces 
came to the mountain-pass of Cerro Gordo, where 
Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, awaited the 
invaders with an army of thirteen thousand men. 
The heights overhanging the road bristled with 
guns, and the lofty hill of Cerro G-ordo was 
strongly fortified, rendering the place almost im- 
pregnable to an attack from the direction of Yera 
Cruz. Scott was too able a soldier to waste the 
lives of his men in such a perilous assault, and took 
the wiser plan of cutting a new road along the 
mountain-slopes and through ravines out of sight 
of the enemy, to the Jalapa road in the Mexican 
rear. An uphill charge from this point gave the 
Americans command of all the minor hills, leaving 
to the Mexicans only the height of Cerro Gordo, 
with its intrenchments and the strong fortress on 
its summit. 

On the 18th of April this hill, several hundred 
feet in rugged height, was assailed in front and 
rear, the Americans gallantly climbing the steep 
rocks in the face of a deadly fire, carrying one 
barricade after another, and at length sweeping 
over the ramparts of the summit fortress and 
driving the defenders from their stronghold down 
the mountain-side. Santa Anna took with him 
only eight thousand men in his hasty retreat, leav- 
ing three thousand as prisoners in the American 
hands, with forty-three pieces of bronze artillery 



SECOND CONQUEST OF THE CAPITAL OF MEXICO. 301 

and a large quantity of ammunition. "Within a 
month afterwards Scott's army marched into the 
city of Puebla, on the table-land, sixty-eight miles 
from the capital. Here they rested for several 
months, awaiting reinforcements. 

On August 7 the army resumed its march, now 
less than eleven thousand strong, the term of 
several regiments having expired and their places 
been partly filled by untried men, none of whom 
had ever fired a gun in war. On they went, up-hill 
still, passing the remains of the old city of Cholula 
with its ruined Aztec pyramid, and toiling through 
a mountain region till Eio Frio was reached, fifty 
miles from Puebla and more than ten thousand feet 
above the level of the sea. 

A few miles farther and the beautiful valley of 
Mexico lay suddenly revealed before them like a 
vision of enchantment. It was a scene of verdant 
charm, the bright green of the fields and groves 
diversified with the white walls of villages and 
farm-houses, the silvery flow of streams, and the 
gleaming surface of winding lakes, while beyond 
and around a wall of wooded mountains ascended 
to snowy peaks. It was a scene of summer charm 
that had not been gazed upon by an invading army 
since the days when Cortez and his men looked 
down upon it with warm delight. 

The principal lakes visible were Lake Chalco, 
with the long, narrow lake of Xochimilco near it, 
and seven miles to the north Lake Tezcuco, near 
the western shore of which the city of Mexico was 



302 HISTORICAL TALES. 

visible. Between Chalco and Tezcuco ran the 
national road, for much of its length a narrow 
causeway between borders of marsh-land. Near 
Lake Xochimilco was visible the Acapulco road. 
Strong works of defence commanded both these 
highways. 

Scott chose the Acapulco road for his route of 
approach, the national road being commanded by 
the lofty and strongly fortified hill of El Penon, 
precipitous on one side, and surrounded by marshes 
and a deep ditch on the other. The Acapulco 
road was defended by strongly garrisoned fortresses 
at Contreras and Churubusco, but seemed more 
available than the other route. Still farther north 
and west of the capital was a third approach to it 
over the road to Toluco, defended by works at 
Molino del Rey and by the fortified hill of Chapul- 
tepec. It was evident that the army under Scott 
would go through some severe and sanguinary fight- 
ing before the city could be reached. 

It is not our purpose to describe the various en- 
gagements by which this work was accomplished. 
It must suffice to say that the strong hill fort of 
Contreras was taken by a surprise, being ap- 
proached by a road leading to its rear during the 
night and taken by storm at sunrise, seventeen 
minutes sufficing for the important victory. The 
garrison fled in dismay, after losing heavily. 

An advance was made the same day on the nearby 
Mexican works at San Antonio and Churubusco, 
and with the same result. The garrison at San 



SECOND CONQUEST OF THE CAPITAL OF MEXICO. 303 

Antonio, fearful of being cut off by the American 
movement, evacuated the works and retired upon 
Churubusco, hotly pursued. The Americans, in- 
spired by success, carried all before them, taking 
the works at the bridge of Churubusco by an im- 
petuous charge and soon putting the enemy to 
flight. Meanwhile, General Shields attacked the 
Mexican reserve, consisting of four thousand in- 
fantry and three thousand cavalry, whose line was 
broken by a bayonet charge. 

The whole Mexican force was, by these well- 
devised movements, forced back in terrible confu- 
sion, and was quickly fleeing in panic. The fugi- 
tives were cut down by the pursuing Americans, 
who followed to the immediate defences of the 
capital, where the pursuit was checked by a heavy 
fire of grape-shot. Thus in one day the Amer- 
icans, nine thousand strong, had captured three 
strong positions, held by three times their number, 
the Mexicans losing in killed, wounded, and pris- 
oners over six thousand men, while the American 
loss in killed and wounded was less than a thousand. 

Negotiations for peace followed, but they came 
to nothing, the armistice that had been declared ter- 
minating on the 7th of September. The problem 
that now lay before General Scott was a very dif- 
ferent one from that which Cortez had faced in his 
siege of the city. In his day Mexico was built on 
an island in the centre of a large lake, which was 
crossed by a number of causeways, broken at inter- 
vals by canals whose bridges could be removed. 



304 HISTORICAL TALES. 

During the centuries that succeeded this lake had 
disappeared, low, marshy lands occupying its site. 
The city, however, was still reached by causeways, 
eight in number, raised about six feet above the 
marsh level. In these ended the five main roads 
leading to the city. A large canal surrounded the 
capital, and within its circle were smaller ones, all 
now filled with water, as this was the rainy season. 
The problem of bridging these under fire was one 
of the difficulties that confronted the Americans. 

General Scott decided to approach the city by the 
causeways of San Cosme, Belen, and Tacubaya, 
which were defended by formidable works, the 
outermost of which was Molino del Key, a fortified 
position at the foot of a slope beyond which a grove 
of cypresses led to the hill of Chapultepec. It 
consisted of a number of stone buildings, some of 
which had been used as a foundry, but which were 
now converted into fortresses. This place was 
carried by storm in the early morning of September 
8, and the stronger position of Casa de Mata, a 
quarter of a mile from Chapultepec, was captured 
by a fierce assault the same day. Only Chapulte- 
pec now lay between the Americans and the Mex- 
ican capital. 

The stronghold of Chapultepec, of which the 
places just taken were in the nature of outworks, 
remained to be captured before the city could be 
reached from that quarter. Chapultepec is an iso- 
lated rocky hill, about one hundred and fifty feet in 
height, and was surmounted by a large stone build- 



SECOND CONQUEST OF THE CAPITAL OF MEXICO. 305 

ing which had been used as the bishop' s palace, but 
was now converted into a strong fortress. It was 
well prepared for defence in guns and garrison, and 
was the most difficult to win of the fortifications of 
the capital. The western side was the most accessi- 
ble, but the face of this, above the grove of cy- 
presses which covered its base, presented a steep, 
rocky, and difficult ascent. 

To deceive the enemy, a feigned advance upon 
another section of the city was made on the 12th 
of September. The two divisions engaged in this 
returned that night to Tacubaya, near Chapultepec, 
though a force still threatened the southern cause- 
ways. Four batteries had been posted within easy 
range of the castle of Chapultepec during the night 
of the 11th, and all next day they kept up a steady 
fire upon it, driving its defenders back and partly 
wrecking the walls. On the morning of the 13th 
the batteries resumed their fire, while the forces 
chosen for the assault approached the hill from dif- 
ferent directions through the fire of the enemy. 

Two assaulting columns of two hundred and fifty 
picked men each, from Worth' s and Twigg' s divi- 
sions, advanced with scaling ladders, while the 
batteries threw shot and shell over their heads to 
drive the defenders from the walls. Major-General 
Pillow led his division through the grove on the east 
side, but he quickly fell with a dangerous wound, 
and General Cadwalader succeeded him. Before 
him was a broken and rocky ascent, with a redoubt 
midway in its height. Up the steep rocks 
20 



306 HISTORICAL TALES. 

climbed the gallant stormers, broke into the re- 
doubt with a wild cheer, and put its defenders to 
flight. On up the steep they then clambered, pass- 
ing without injury the mines which the Mexicans 
had planted, but which they could not fire without 
killing their own men. In a few minutes more the 
storming party reached the summit and climbed 
over the castle wall with shouts of victory, driving 
back its defenders. Soon the United States flag 
was seen floating over the ramparts, a roar of 
cheers greeting the inspiring spectacle. 

On the southeast Quitman's column of assault 
was making like progress, while Smith's brigade 
captured two batteries at the foot of the hill on the 
right, and Shield's brigade crossed the meadows 
under a hot fire of musketry and artillery and 
swept up the hill to the support of the stormers. 

Thus the castle of Chapultepec, the last and 
strongest citadel of the Mexicans, had fallen before 
an impetuous charge up a hill deemed inaccessible, 
in the face of a hot fire, and the city itself lay at 
the mercy of the invaders. The causeway which 
it defended formed a double roadway on each side 
of a great aqueduct, with stone arches and pillars. 
Shields charged impetuously along this causeway, 
towards the city, two miles distant, while Quitman 
pursued the fleeing enemy along the neighboring 
causeway of Belen. 

An aide sent by Scott came riding up to Shields 
to bid him halt till Worth, who was following the 
San Cosme causeway, could force its defences. The 



SECOND CONQUEST OF THE CAPITAL OF MEXICO. 307 

aide politely saluted the eagerly advancing general 
and began, "General Scott presents his compli- 
ments ' ' 

"I have no time for compliments just now," 
roared out Shields, and spurred briskly onward to 
escape the unwelcome orders which he felt were 
coming. Soon he had led his men into the suburbs 
of the city, while Worth and Quitman charged in- 
ward over the neighboring causeways with equal 
impetuosity. 

A strong force was quickly within the streets of 
the city, assailed by skirmishers firing from houses 
and gardens, who could be reached only by forcing 
a way in with pickaxes and bars. Two guns were 
brought in by Worth's column and planted in 
position to batter down the San Cosme gate, the 
barrier to the great square in the city' s centre, and 
which fronted the cathedral and palace. Quitman 
and Shields had to fight their way through as hot 
a fire, and as they charged inward found themselves 
before the citadel, mounting fifteen guns. At this 
point a severe loss was sustained, but the assailants 
held their own, mounting guns to attack the citadel 
the next morning. 

These guns were not used. Before daylight a 
deputation of the city council waited on General 
Scott and announced that the army had evacuated 
the city, and the government officials had fled. It 
was not long afterwards before the Stars and Stripes 
were floating over the National Palace and in the 
great plaza. 



308 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Fighting continued for a day longer between the 
Americans and about four thousand soldiers and 
liberated convicts, who fought with desperate fury 
for their country and were not put down without 
considerable loss. On the morning of September 16 
the army of the United States held undisputed pos- 
session of the famous old capital of Mexico. Fight- 
ing continued, however, elsewhere for some months 
later, and it was not till the 2d of February, 1848, 
that a treaty of peace was signed. 



WALKER THE FILIBUSTER, AND 
THE INVASION OF NICARA- 
GUA. 

On the 15th of October, 1853, a small and daring 
band of reckless adventurers sailed from San Fran- 
cisco, on an enterprise seemingly madder and wilder 
than that which Cortez had undertaken more than 
three centuries before. The purpose of this handful 
of men — filibusters they were called, as lawless in 
their way as the buccaneers of old — was the conquest 
of Northwest Mexico ; possibly in the end of all 
Mexico and Central America. Iso one knows what 
wild vagaries filled the mind of William Walker, their 
leader, ' ' the gray-eyed man of destiny,' ' as his 
admirers called him. 

Landing at La Paz, in the southwestern corner 
of the Gulf of California, with his few companions, 
he captured a number of hamlets and then gran- 
diloquently proclaimed Lower California an inde- 
pendent state and himself its president. His next 
proclamation ' ' annexed' ' to his territory the large 
Mexican state of Sonora, on the mainland opposite 
the California Gulf, and for a brief period he posed 
among the sparse inhabitants as a ruler. Some 
reinforcements reached him by water, but another 
party that started overland was dispersed by star- 
vation, their food giving out. 

309 



310 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Walker now set out with his buccaneering band 
on a long march of six hundred miles through a 
barren and unpeopled country towards his "pos- 
sessions" in the interior. The Mexicans did not 
need any forces to defeat him. Fatigue and famine 
did the work for them, desertion decimated the band 
of invaders, and the hopeless march up the peninsula 
ended at San Diego, where he and his men surren- 
dered to the United States authorities. Walker was 
tried at San Francisco in 1854 for violation of the 
neutrality laws, but was acquitted. 

This pioneer attempt at invasion only whetted 
Walker' s filibustering appetite. Looking about for 
' ' new worlds to conquer, ' ' he saw a promising field 
in Nicaragua, then torn by internal dissensions. 
Invited by certain American speculators or adven- 
turers to lend his aid to the democratic party of 
insurrectionists, he did not hesitate, but at once col- 
lected a band of men of his own type and set sail 
for this new field of labor and ambition. On the 
11th of June, 1855, he landed with his small force 
of sixty-two men at Eealijo, on the Nicaraguan 
coast, and was joined there by about a hundred of 
the native rebels. 

Making his way inland, his first encounter with 
the government forces took place at Eivas, where he 
met a force of four hundred and eighty men. His 
native allies fled at the first shots, but the Americans 
fought with such valor and energy that the enemy 
were defeated with a loss of one-third their number, 
his loss being only ten. In a second conflict at 



WALKER AND THE INVASION OF NICARAGUA. 311 

Virgin Bay he was equally successful, and on the 
15th of October he captured the important city of 
Granada. 

These few successes gave him such prestige and 
brought such aid from the revolutionists that the 
opposite party was quite ready for peace, and on 
the 25th he made a treaty with General Corral, its 
leader, which made him fairly master of the country. 
He declined the office of president, which was offered 
him, but accepted that of generalissimo of the re- 
public, an office better suited to maintain his position. 
His rapid success brought him not only the support 
of the liberal faction, but attracted recruits from the 
United States, who made their way into the country 
from the east and the west alike until he had a force 
of twelve hundred Americans under his command. 

General Corral, who had treated with him for 
peace, was soon to pay the penalty for his readiness 
to make terms with an invader. He was arrested 
for treason, on some charge brought by Walker, 
tried before a court-martial at which the new gen- 
eralissimo presided, sentenced to death, and executed 
without delay. 

The next event in this fantastic drama of filibus- 
terism was a war with the neighboring republic of 
Costa Eica. Both sides mustered armies, and a 
hostile meeting took place at Guanacaste, on March 
20, 1856, in which Walker was worsted. He kept 
the field, however, and met the foe again at Eivas, 
on April 11. This time he was victorious, and the 
two republics now made peace. 



312 HISTORICAL TALES. 

His military success seemed to have made the 
invader securely the lord and master of Nicaragua, 
and he now threw aside his earlier show of modesty 
and had himself elected president on June 25. 
He had so fully established himself that he was 
recognized as head of the republic by President 
Pierce, on behalf of the United States. But he 
immediately began to act the master and tyrant in 
a way that was likely to bring his government to a 
speedy end. 

Money being scarce, he issued currency on a 
liberal scale, and by a decree he restored the system 
of slavery which had been abolished thirty-two 
years before. Not content with these radical meas- 
ures within the republic itself, he was unwise 
enough to create for himself a powerful enemy in 
the United States by meddling with the privileges 
of the Yanderbilt Steamship Company, then en- 
gaged in transporting the stream of gold-hunters 
to California over a Nicaraguan route. Walker 
revoked their charter and confiscated their prop- 
erty, thus bringing against his new government a 
fire in the rear. 

His aggressive policy, in fact, made him enemies 
on all sides, the Central American states bordering 
on Nicaragua being in sore dread of their ambitious 
neighbor, while the agents of the Yanderbilt Com- 
pany worked industriously to stir up a revolt against 
this soaring eagle of filibusterism. 

The result was a strong revolt against his rule, 
and he soon found himself confronted by a force of 



WALKER AND THE INVASION OF NICARAGUA. 313 

patriots in the field. For a short time there were 
busy times in Nicaragua, several battles being 
fought by the contending forces, the war ending 
with the burning of Granada by the president. 
Finding that the whole country was rising against 
him and that his case had grown desperate, Walker 
soon gave up the hopeless contest and surrendered, 
on May 1, 1857, to Commodore C. H. Davis of the 
United States sloop-of-war "St. Mary," who took 
him to Panama, where he made his way back to the 
United States. 

Thus closed the conquering career of this minor 
Cortez of the nineteenth century. But while 
Walker the president was no more, Walker the 
filibuster was not squelched. The passion for ad- 
venture was as strong in his mind as ever, and his 
brief period of power had roused in him an un- 
quenchable thirst for rule. In consequence he made 
effort after effort to get back to the scene of his 
exploits, and rise to power again, his persistent 
thirst for invasion giving the United States authori- 
ties no small trouble and ending only with his death. 

In fact, he was barely at home before he was 
hatching new schemes and devising fresh exploits. 
To check a new expedition which he was organizing 
in New Orleans, the authorities of that city had 
him arrested and put under bonds to keep the 
peace. Soon after that we find him escaping their 
jurisdiction in a vessel ostensibly bound for Mo- 
bile, yet making port first in Central America, 
where he landed on November 25, 1857. 



314 HISTORICAL TALES. 

This effort at invasion proved a mere flash in the 
pan. ]STo support awaited him and his deluded 
followers, and in two weeks' time he found it judi- 
cious to surrender once more to the naval authorities 
of the United States ; this time to Commodore 
Paulding, who took him to New York with his 
followers, one hundred and thirty -two in number. 

His fiasco stirred up something of a breeze in the 
United States. President Buchanan had strongly 
condemned the invasion of friendly territory in his 
annual message, but he now sent a special message to 
Congress in which he equally condemned Commo- 
dore Paulding for landing an American force on for- 
eign soil. He decided that under the circumstances, 
the government must decline to hold Walker as a 
prisoner, unless he was properly arrested under 
judicial authority.. At the same time Buchanan 
strongly deprecated all filibustering expeditions. 

The result of this was that Walker was again set 
free, and it was not long before he had a new fol- 
lowing, there being many of the adventurous class 
who sympathized warmly with his enterprising 
efforts. This was especially the case in the South. 
Thither Walker proceeded, and, inspired by his old 
enthusiasm, he soon organized another company, 
which sought to leave the country in October, 1858. 
He was closely watched, however, and the whole com- 
pany was arrested at the mouth of the Mississippi 
on the steamer on which passage had been taken. 

President Buchanan had issued a proclamation 
forbidding all such expeditions, and Walker was now 



WALKER AND THE INVASION OF NICARAGUA. 315 

put or trial before the United States Court at New 
Orleans. But the case against him seemed to lack 
satisfactory evidence, and he was acquitted. 

Desisting for a time from his efforts, Walker oc- 
cupied himself in writing an account of his exploits, 
in a book entitled < ' The War in Nicaragua. ' ' But 
this was far too tame work for one of his stirring 
disposition, and in June, 1860, he was off again, 
this time making Honduras the scene of his invading 
energy. Landing at Truxillo on the 27th, he seized 
that town and held it for eight weeks, at the end of 
which time he was ordered to leave the place by the 
captain of a British man-of-war. The president of 
Honduras was rapidly approaching with a defensive 
force. Walker marched south, but his force was 
too small to cope with the president' s army, and he 
had not gone far before he found himself a captive 
in the hands of the Honduran government. Central 
America had by this time more than enough of 
William Walker and his methods, and five days 
after his capture he was condemned to death and 
shot at Truxillo. 

Thus ended the somewhat remarkable career of 
the chief of filibusters, the most persistent of 
modern invaders of foreign lands, whose reckless 
exploits were of the mediaeval rather than of the 
modern type. A short, slender, not especially de- 
monstrative man, Walker did not seem made for a 
hero of enthusiastic adventure. His most striking 
feature was his keen gray eyes, which brought him 
the title of l ' the gray-eyed man of destiny. ' ' 



MAXIMILIAN OF AUSTRIA AND 
HIS EMPIRE IN MEXICO. 

It is interesting, in view of the total conquest and 
submission of the Indians in Mexico, that the final 
blow for freedom in that country should have been 
made by an Indian of pure native blood. His name 
was Benito Juarez, and his struggle for liberty was 
against the French invaders and Maximilian, the 
puppet emperor, put by Louis Napoleon on the 
Mexican throne. In the words of Shakespeare, 
"Thereby hangs a tale." 

For many years after the Spanish colonies had 
won their independence the nations of Europe looked 
upon them with a covetous eye. They would dearly 
have liked to snap up some of these weak countries, 
which Spain had been unable to hold, but the great 
republic of the United States stood as their pro- 
tector, and none of them felt it quite safe to step 
over that threatening bar to ambition, the ' ' Mon- 
roe Doctrine. " " Hands off, ' ' said Uncle Sam, and 
they obeyed, though much against their will. 

In 1861 began a war in the United States which 
gave the people of that country all they wanted to 
do. Here was the chance for Europe, and Napoleon 
III. , the usurper of France, took advantage of it to 
send an army to Mexico and attempt the conquest 
of that country. It was the overweening ambition 
316 



MAXIMILIAN AND HIS EMPIRE IN MEXICO. 317 

of Louis Napoleon which led him on. It was his 
scheme to found an empire in Mexico which, while 
having the name of being independent, would be 
under the control of France and would shed glory- 
on his reign. 

At that time the President of Mexico, the Indian 
we have named, was Eenito Juarez, a descendant of 
the Aztec race, and, as some said, with the blood 
of the Montezumas in his veins. Yet his family 
was of the lowest class of the Indians, and when he 
was twelve years old he did not know how to read 
or write. After that he obtained a chance for edu- 
cation, and in time became a lawyer, was made 
governor of his native state, and kept on climbing 
upward till he became secretary of state, president 
of the Supreme Court, and finally president of 
Mexico. 

He was the man who had the invaders of his 
country to fight, and he fought them well and long. 
But the poor and undisciplined Mexicans were no 
match for the trained troops ^of France, and they 
were driven back step by step until the invaders 
were masters of nearly the whole country. Yet 
Juarez still had a capital and a government at San 
Luis Potosi, and all loyal Mexicans still looked on 
him as their president. 

When Napoleon III. found himself master of 
Mexico, he looked around for a man who would serve 
him as a tool to hold the country. Such a man he 
found in Ferdinand Joseph Maximilian, the brother 
of the emperor of Austria, a dreamer rather than a 



318 HISTORICAL TALES. 

man of action, and a fervent believer in the ' ' divine 
right of kings. ' ' This was the kind of man that 
the French usurper was in want of, and he offered 
him the position of emperor of Mexico. Maxi- 
milian was taken by surprise. The proposition was 
a startling one. But in the end ambition overcame 
judgment, and he accepted the lofty but perilous 
position on the condition that France should sustain 
him on the throne. 

The struggle of the Mexicans for freedom was 
for the time at an end, and the French had almost 
everywhere prevailed, when in 1864 the new em- 
peror and his young wife Carlotta arrived at Yera 
Cruz and made their way to the city of Mexico. 
This they entered with great show and ceremony 
and amid the cheers of many of the lookers on, 
though the mass of the people, who had no love 
for emperors, kept away or held their peace. 

The new empire began with imperial display. 
All the higher society of Mexico were at the feet 
of the new monarchs. With French money to pay 
their way and a French army to protect them, 
there was nothing for Maximilian and Carlotta to 
do but enjoy the romance and splendor of their new 
dignity. On the summit of the hill of Chapultepec, 
two hundred feet above the valley, stood the old 
palace which had been ruined by the American guns 
when Scott invaded Mexico. This was rebuilt by 
Maximilian on a grand scale, hanging gardens were 
constructed and walled in by galleries with marble 
columns, costly furniture was brought from Europe, 




HOUSE OF MAXIMILIAN AT QUERETARO. 



MAXIMILIAN AND HIS EMPIRE IN MEXICO. 319 

and here the new emperor and empress held their 
court, with a brilliant succession of fetes, dinners, 
dances, and receptions. All was brilliance and 
gayety, and as yet no shadow fell on their dream of 
proud and royal reign. 

But the shadow was coming. Maximilian had 
reached Mexico in June, 1864. For a year longer 
the civil war in the great republic of the north 
continued ; then it came to an end, and the govern- 
ment of the United States was free to take a hand 
in the arbitrary doings on the soil of her near 
neighbor to the south. 

It was a sad blow to the ambitious schemes of 
Napoleon, it was like the rumble of an earthquake 
under the throne of Maximilian, when from Wash- 
ington came a diplomatic demand which, translated 
into plain English, meant, you had better make 
haste to get your armies out of Mexico; if they 
stay there, you will have the United States to deal 
with. It hurt Louis Napoleon' s pride. He shifted 
and prevaricated and delayed, but the hand of the 
great republic was on the throat of his new empire, 
and there was nothing for him to do but obey. 
He knew very well that if he resisted, the armies 
of the civil war would make very short work of 
his forces in Mexico. 

Maximilian was strongly advised to give up his 
dream of an empire and leave the country with the 
French. He changed his mind a half-dozen times, 
but finally decided to stay, fancying that he could 
hold his throne with the aid of the loyal Mexicans. 



320 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Carlotta, full of ambition, went to Europe and 
appealed for help to Napoleon. She told him very 
plainly what she thought of his actions ; but it was 
all of no avail, and she left the palace almost broken- 
hearted. Soon after Maximilian received the dis- 
tressing news that his wife had lost her reason 
through grief, and was quite insane. At once he 
made up his mind to return to Europe, and set out 
for Yera Cruz. But before he got there he changed 
his mind again and concluded to remain. 

At the end of January, 1867, the French army, 
which had held on until then, with one excuse after 
another, left the capital city, which it had occupied 
for years, and began its long march to the sea-shore 
at Yera Cruz. Much was left behind. Cannon 
were broken up as useless, horses sold for a song, 
and the evacuation was soon complete, the Belgian 
and Austrian troops which the new emperor had 
brought with him going with the French. Maxi- 
milian did not want them ; he preferred to trust 
himself to the loyal arms of his Mexican subjects, 
hoping thus to avoid jealousy. As for the United 
States, it had no more to say; it was content to 
leave this shadow of an empire to its loyal Mexicans. 

It cannot be said that Maximilian had taken the 
right course to make himself beloved by the Mexi- 
cans. Full of his obsolete notion of the "divine 
right of kings, ' ' he had no sooner reached Mexico 
than he issued a decree saying that all who clung 
to the republic or resisted his authority should be 
shot. And this was not waste paper, like so many 



MAXIMILIAN AND HIS EMPIRE IN MEXICO. 321 

decrees, for a number of prisoners were shot under its 
cruel mandate, one of them being General Orteaga. 
It has been said that the despot went so far as to 
order that the whole laboring population of the 
country should be reduced to slavery. 

While all this was going on President Juarez was 
not idle. During the whole French occupation he 
had kept in arms, and now began his advance from 
his place of refuge in the north. General Escobedo, 
chief of his armies, soon conquered the northern 
part of the country, and occupied the various states 
and cities as soon as they were left by the French. 

But neither was Maximilian idle. Agents of the 
Church party had finally induced him to remain, 
and this party now came to his aid. General Mir- 
amon, an able leader, commanded his army, which 
was recruited to the strength of eight thousand men, 
most of them trained soldiers, though nearly half 
of them were raw recruits. 

With this force Maximilian advanced to Queretaro 
and made it his head -quarters. Juarez had mean- 
while advanced to Zacatecas and fixed his residence 
there with his government about him. Eut the 
president and cabinet came very near being taken 
captive at one fell swoop, for Miramon suddenly 
advanced and captured Zacatecas by surprise, Juarez 
and his government barely escaping. 

What would have been the result if the whole 

Mexican government had been taken prisoners it is 

not easy to say. Not unlikely, however, General 

Escobedo would have done what he now did, which 

21 



322 HISTORICAL TALES. 

was to advance on Queretaro and invest it with his 
army. Thus the empire of Maximilian was limited 
to this one town, where it was besieged by an army 
of Mexican patriots, while, with the exception of 
a few cities, the whole country outside was free 
from imperial rule. 

Soon the emperor and his army found themselves 
closely confined within the walls of Queretaro. 
Skirmishes took place almost daily, in which both 
sides fought with courage and resolution. Provisions 
grew scarce and foraging parties were sent out, but 
after each attack the lines of the besiegers became 
closer. The clergy had made liberal promises of 
forces and funds, and General Marquez was sent to 
the city of Mexico to obtain them. He managed to 
get through the lines of Escobedo, but he failed to 
return, and nothing was ever seen by Maximilian 
of the promised aid. Such forces and funds as 
Marquez obtained he used in attacking General Diaz, 
who was advancing on Pueblo. Diaz besieged and 
took Pueblo, and then turned on Marquez, whom he 
defeated so completely that he made his way back 
to Mexico almost alone under cover of the night. 
It was the glory gained by this act that later raised 
Diaz to the presidency, which he held so brilliantly 
for so many years. 

The hopes of Maximilian were dwindling to a 
shadow. For two months the siege of Queretaro 
continued, steadily growing closer. During this 
trying time Maximilian showed the best elements 
of his character. He was gentle and cheerful in de- 



MAXIMILIAN AND HIS EMPIRE IN MEXICO. 323 

meanor, and brave in action, not hesitating to expose 
himself to the fire of the enemy. Plans were made 
for his escape, that he might put himself at the head 
of his troops elsewhere, but he refused, through a 
sense of honor, to desert his brave companions. 

Daily provisions grew scarcer, and Maximilian 
himself had only the coarse, tough food which was 
served to the common soldiers. Day after day 
Marquez was looked for with the promised aid, but 
night after night brought only disappointment. At 
length, on the night of May 14, General Lopez, in 
charge of the most important point in the city, 
turned traitor and admitted two battalions of the 
enemy. From this point the assailants swarmed 
into the city, where terror and confusion every- 
where prevailed. Lopez had not intended that the 
emperor should be captured, and gave him warning 
in time to escape. He attempted to do so, and 
reached a little hill outside the town, but here he 
was surrounded by foes and forced to deliver up his 
sword. 

Juarez, the Indian president, was at length full 
master of Mexico, and held its late emperor in his 
hands. The fate of Maximilian depended upon his 
word. Plans, indeed, were made for his escape, but 
always at the last moment he failed to avail himself 
of them. His friends sought to win for him the 
clemency of Juarez, but they found him inflexible. 
The traitors, as he called them, should be tried by 
court-martial, he said and abide the decision of the 
court. 



324 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Tried they were, though the trial was little more 
than a farce, with the verdict fixed in advance. 
This verdict was death. The condemned, in addi- 
tion to Maximilian, were his chiefs in command, 
Miramon and Medjia. The late emperor rose early 
on the fatal morning and heard mass. He embraced 
his fellow victims, and as he reached the street 
said, ' ' What a beautiful day ! On such a one I 
have always wished to die. ' ' 

He was greeted with respect by the people in 
the street, the women weeping. He responded 
with a brief address, closing with the words, ' ' May 
my blood be the last spilt for the welfare of the 
country, and if more should be shed, may it flow 
for its good, and not by treason. Yiva Indepen- 
dencia ! Yiva Mexico !" 

In a few minutes more the fatal shots were fired, 
and the empire of Maximilian was at an end. 



MA CEO AND THE STRUGGLE 
TOR CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

On the 24th of February, 1895, the people of 
Havana, the capital of Cuba, were startled by a 
report that rebels were in the field, a band of 
twenty-four having appeared in arms at Ybarra, in 
the province of Matanzas. Other small bands 
were soon heard of elsewhere in the island. A 
trifle this seemed, in view of the fact that Cuba 
was guarded by twenty thousand Spanish troops 
and had on its military rolls the names of sixty 
thousand volunteers. But the island was seething 
with discontent, and trifles grow fast under such 
circumstances. Twenty years before a great re- 
bellion had been afoot. It was settled by treaty in 
1878, but Spain had ignored the promises of the 
treaty and steadily heaped up fuel for the new 
flame which had now burst out. 

As the days and weeks went on the movement 
grew, many of the plantation hands joining the 
insurgents until there were several thousand men 
in arms. For a time these had it all their own 
way, raiding and plundering the plantations of the 
loyalists, and vanishing into the woods and moun- 
tains when the troops appeared. 

The war to which this led was not one of the pic- 
turesque old affairs of battles and banners, marches 

325 



326 HISTORICAL TALES. 

and campaigns. It displayed none of l ' the pomp 
and circumstance of glorious war ;' ' forest am- 
bushes, sudden attacks, quick retreats, and brisk 
affrays that led to nothing forming the staple of 
the conflict. The patriots had no hope of triumph- 
ing over the armed and trained troops of Spain, 
but they hoped to wear them out and make the war 
so costly to Spain that she would in the end give 
up the island in despair. 

The work of the Cuban patriots was like the 
famous deeds of Marion and his men in the swampy 
region of the Carolina coast. Two-thirds of Cuba 
were uncultivated and half its area was covered 
with thickets and forests. In the wet season the 
low-lands of the coast were turned into swamps 
of sticky black mud. Underbrush filled the forests, 
so thick and dense as to be almost impassable. The 
high bushes and thick grasses of the plains formed 
a jungle which could be traversed only with the 
aid of the machete, the heavy, sharp, cutlass-like 
blade which the Cuban uses both as tool and 
sword, now cutting his way through bush and 
jungle, now slicing off the head of an enemy in 
war. 

Everywhere in the island there are woods, there 
are hills and mountains, there are growths of lofty 
grass, affording countless recesses and refuges for 
fugitives and lurking-places for ambushed foes. To 
retire to the ' ' long grass' ' is a Cuban phrase mean- 
ing, to gain safety from pursuit, and a patriot 
force might lie unseen and unheard while an army 



MACEO AND CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 327 

marched by. In brief, Cuba is a paradise for the 
bush-fighter, and the soldiers of Spain were none 
too eager to venture into the rebel haunts, where 
the flame of death might suddenly burst forth from 
the most innocent-looking woodland retreat or 
grass-grown mead. The soldiers might search for 
days for a foe who could not be found, and as for 
starving out the rebels, that was no easy thing to 
do. There were the yam, the banana, the sweet 
potato, the wild fruits of the woodland, which the 
fertile soil bore abundantly, while the country- 
people were always ready to supply their brothers 
in the field. 

Such was the state of affairs in Cuba in the rebel- 
lion of 1895. For a time the rebels gathered in 
small bands with none but local leaders. But the 
outbreak had been fomented by agents afar, fugi- 
tives from the former war, and early in April 
twenty-four of these exiles arrived from Costa Rica, 
landing secretly at a point near the eastern end of 
the island. 

Chief among the new comers was Antonio Maceo, 
a mulatto, who had won a high reputation for his 
daring and skill in the past conflict, and who had 
unbounded influence over the negro element of the 
rebellion. Wherever Maceo was ready to lead, they 
were ready to follow to the death if he gave the 
word, and he soon proved himself the most daring 
and successful soldier in the war. 

He did not make his way inland with safety. 
Spanish cavalry were patrolling the coast to prevent 



328 HISTORICAL TALES. 

landings, and Maceo and his comrades had a brisk 
fight with a party of these soon after landing, he 
getting away with a bnllet-hole through his hat. 
For ten days they were in imminent danger, now 
fighting, now hiding, now seeking the wild wood- 
land fruits for food, and so pestered by the Spanish 
patrols that the party was forced to break up, only 
two or three remaining with Maceo. In the end 
these fell in with a party of rebels, from whom they 
received a warm and enthusiastic welcome. 

Maceo was a rebel in grain. He was the only one 
of the leaders in the former war who had refused to 
sign the treaty of peace. He had kept up the fight 
for two months longer, and finally escaped from the 
country, now to return without the load of a broken 
promise on his conscience. 

The new leader of the rebellion soon had a large 
following of insurgents at his back, and in several 
sharp ^brushes with the enemy proved that he could 
more than hold his own. Other patriots soon 
arrived from exile, — Jose Marti, the fomenter of the 
insurrection; Maximo G-omez, an able soldier; and 
several more whose presence gave fresh spirit to the 
rebels. The movement, which had as yet been a 
mere hasty outbreak, was now assuming the dimen- 
sions of a regular war, hundreds of patriots joining 
the ranks of these able leaders, until more than six 
thousand men were in the field. 

Almost everywhere that they met their enemy 
they were largely outnumbered, and they fought 
mostly from ambush, striking their blows when least 



MACEO AND CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 329 

expected and vanishing so suddenly and by such 
hidden paths that pursuit was usually idle. Much 
of their strength lay in their horses. ~No Cossacks 
or cowboys could surpass them as riders, in which 
art they were far superior to the Spanish cavalry. 
Many stories are told of women who rode in their 
ranks and wielded the machete as boldly and skill- 
fully as the men, and in this there is doubtless much 
truth. Their horses were no show animals, but a 
sore-backed, sorry lot, fed on rushes or colla, there 
being no other grain, left standing unsheltered, rain 
or shine, but as tough and tireless beasts as our own 
bronchos, and ever ready to second their riders in 
mad dashes on the foe. 

The favorite mode of fighting practised by the 
insurgents was to surprise the enemy by a sharp 
skirmish fire, their sharp-shooters seeking to pick 
off the officers. Then, if there was a fair oppor- 
tunity, they would dash from their covert in a wild 
cavalry charge, machete in hand, and yelling like 
so many demons, and seek to make havoc in the 
ranks of the foe. This was the kind of fighting in 
which Maceo excelled. 

Through 1895 the war went on with endless skir- 
mishes and only one affair that could be called a 
battle. In this Maceo was the insurgent leader, 
while Martinez Campos, governor-general of Cuba, 
a man looked upon as the ablest general of Spain, 
led the Spanish troops. Maceo had caused great 
annoyance by attacks on train-loads of food for the 
fortified town of Bayamo, and Campos determined 



330 HISTORICAL TALES. 

to drive him from the field. Several columns of 
Spanish troops were set in motion upon him from 
different quarters, one of these, fifteen hundred 
strong, led by Campos himself. On the 13th of 
July the two armies met, Maceo, with nearly three 
thousand men, being posted on a stock-farm several 
miles from Bayamo. 

The fight began with a sharp attack on the Span- 
iards, intended to strike the division under Campos; 
but by an error it fell upon the advance guard, led 
by General Santocildes, which was saluted by a 
brisk fire from the wooded hill-sides. Santocildes 
fell dead, and a bullet tore the heel from the gover- 
nor-general' s boot. 

Maceo, surmising from the confusion in the 
Spanish ranks that some important officer had 
fallen, now launched his horsemen upon them in 
a vigorous machete charge. Though Campos suc- 
ceeded in repelling them, he felt himself in a critical 
situation, and hastily drew up his whole force into 
a hollow square, with the wagons and the dead 
horses and mules for breastworks. Around this 
strong formation the Cubans raged for several hours, 
only the skill of Campos saving his men from a dis- 
astrous rout. An assault was made on the rear 
guard early in the affray, Maceo hoping to capture 
the ammunition train. But its defenders held their 
ground vigorously, and fought their way to the 
main column, where they aided to form the square. 
Finally the Spaniards succeeded in reaching Ba- 
yamo, pursued by the Cubans and having lost 



MACEO AND CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 331 

heavily in the fight. They were saved from utter 
destruction by Maceo' s lack of artillery, and Cam- 
pos was very careful afterwards not to venture near 
this daring leader without a powerful force. 

Maximo Gomez, one of the principal leaders in 
the earlier war, had now been appointed commander- 
in-chief of the Cuban forces, with Antonio Maceo 
as his lieutenant-general. He had made his way 
westward into the province of Santa Clara, and in 
November Maceo left the eastern province of 
Santiago de Cuba to join him. In his way lay the 
trocha, the famous device of the Spaniards to pre- 
vent the free movement of the Cuban forces. It 
may be of interest to describe this new idea in war- 
fare, devised by the Spaniards to check the free 
movement of their rebel foes. 

The word trocha means trench, but the Spanish 
trochas were military lines cut through the woods 
and across the island from side to side, and de- 
fended by barbed-wire fences, while the felled trees 
were piled along both sides of the roadway, making 
a difficult breastwork of jagged roots and branches. 
At intervals of a quarter-mile or more along this 
well -guarded avenue were forts, each with a gar- 
rison of about one hundred men, it needing about 
fifteen thousand to defend the whole line of the 
trocha from sea to sea. 

Such was the elaborate device adopted by Campos, 
and by Weyler after him, to check the Cuban move- 
ments. We need only say here that, despite its 
cost and the number of men it tied up on guard 



332 HISTORICAL TALES. 

duty, the trocha failed to restrain the alert islanders. 
Gomez had crossed it in his movement westward, 
and Maceo now followed with equal readiness. He 
made a feint of an attack in force on one part of 
the line, and when the Spaniards had concentrated 
to defend this point, he crossed at an unprotected 
spot, without firing a shot or losing a man. 

Westward still went the Cubans, heedless of tro- 
chas and Spaniards. From Santa Clara they 
entered Matanzas province, and from this made 
their way into the province of Havana, bringing 
the war almost to the gates of the capital. Spain 
had now sent more than one hundred thousand 
troops across the ocean, though many of these 
were in the hospitals. As for the Cubans, the 
island had now risen almost from end to end, and 
their force was estimated at from thirty to fifty 
thousand men. It was no longer a rebel outbreak 
that Spain had to deal with, it was a national war. 

By the end of the year the Cubans were firmly 
fixed in Havana province, many negro field-hands 
and Cuban youths having joined their ranks. They 
fought not only against the Spaniards, but against 
the bandits also, of whom there were many abroad 
plundering from both sides alike. These were 
hanged by the patriots whenever captured. Maceo 
was the active fighter of the force, Gomez being 
occupied in burning sugar-cane fields and destroying 
railroads, so as to deprive Spain of the sinews of 
war. 

In January, 1896, a new movement westward 



MACEO AND CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 333 

was made, Maceo leading his men into the province 
of Pinar del Eio, which occupies the western end 
of the island. Here was the great tobacco district, 
one into which insurrection had never before made 
its way. Within a year rebellion had covered the 
island from end to end, the Spaniards being secure 
nowhere but within the cities, while the insurgents 
moved wherever they chose in the country. The 
sky around the capital was heavy with smoke by 
day and lurid with the flames of burning fields at 
night, showing that Gomez was busy with his work 
of destruction, burning the crops of every planter 
who sought to grind his cane. 

Let us now follow the daring mulatto leader 
through the remainder of his career. General 
Weyler had now succeeded Campos, and began his 
official life with the boast that he would soon clear 
the provinces near Havana of rebels in arms. But 
he was hardly in the governor's chair when Maceo 
was back from the west and swooping down on 
the city of Jaruco, which he looted and burned. 

Weyler sent troops into Pinar del Eio, where 
they found no one to oppose them, and he was 
soon able to inform the world by a proclamation that 
this province was pacified. But the ink was barely 
dry upon it when Maceo, having burnt the port of 
Batabano, on the southern coast, was back in the 
"pacified" province, where he made his head- 
quarters in the mountains and defied all the power 
of Spain. 

Instead of seeking him here, Weyler now at- 



334 HISTORICAL TALES. 

tempted to confine him by building a new trocha, 
cutting off that end of the island. This took two 
months to complete, during which Maceo continued 
his work almost unopposed, destroying the tobacco 
of loyalists, defeating every force sent against him, 
and leaving to Spain only four fortified cities in the 
southern part of the province. 

Not until autumn opened did Weyler take the 
field, marching into Pinar del Eio at the head of 
thirty thousand men, confident now of putting an 
end to the work of his persistent foe, whom he felt 
sure he had hemmed in with his trocha. Between 
the two forces, Spanish and Cuban, the province 
was sadly harried, and became so incapable of sup- 
porting a large force that Maceo was obliged to 
dismiss the most of his men. 

Leaving the slender remnant under the control 
of one of his lieutenants, he once more passed the 
trocha, this time rowing round its end in a boat and 
landing in Havana province. He had sent orders 
in advance for a concentration of the Cuban forces 
in this region, that he might give "Weyler a new 
employment. 

The daring partisan leader was near the end of 
his career, brought to his death by the work of a 
traitor, as was widely believed. While waiting for 
the gathering of the forces, he, with the few men 
with him, was fired on from a Spanish ambush, and 
fell, mortally wounded. 

Thus died the most dashing soldier that the 
Cuban rebellion called into the field. Dr. Zertucha, 



MACEO AND CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 335 

of his staff, was charged with treachery in leading 
him into this ambush, though that is by no means 
proved. Maceo was one of nine brothers, all sol- 
diers, and all of whom had now died in the great 
struggle for Cuban independence. His body was 
recovered from the enemy after a desperate fight; 
his valiant spirit was lost to the cause. Yet his 
work had not been without avail, and the country 
for which he had fought so bravely was left by him 
on the highroad to liberty. 



LIEUTENANT HOBSON AND THE 
SINKING OF THE " MERRIMAC" 

About three o'clock of a dark morning, whose 
deep gloom shrouded alike the shores and waters of 
Cuba' s tropic isle, a large craft left the side of the 
< ' ~New York, ' ' the flag- ship of Admiral Sampson' s 
fleet oif Santiago, and glided towards the throat of 
the narrow channel leading to its land-locked har- 
bor. This mysterious craft was an old coal-carrier 
named the ' ' Merrimac. ' ' On board were Eichmond 
P. Hobson, Assistant Naval Constructor, and seven 
volunteer seamen. Their purpose was to sink the 
old hulk in the channel and thus to seal up the 
Spanish ships in Santiago harbor. The fact that 
there were ten chances to one that they would go to 
the bottom with their craft, or be riddled with 
Spanish bullets, did not trouble their daring souls. 
Their country called, and they obeyed. 

Eanged along the sides of the ship, below decks, 
was a series of torpedoes, prepared to blow the 
vessel into a hopeless wreck when the proper mo- 
ment came. A heavy weight in coal had been left 
on board, to carry her rapidly to the bottom, and 
there was strong hope that she could be dropped in 
the channel, ' ' like a cork in the neck of a bottle, ' ' 
and ' ' bottle' ' up Admiral Cervera and his cruisers. 
That it was an errand of imminent risk did not 
336 



LIEUTENANT HOBSON AND THE " MERRIMAC." 337 

trouble the bold American tars. There were volun- 
teers enough eager to undertake the perilous task 
to form a ship's crew, and to the six seamen chosen 
Coxswain Clausen added himself as a stowaway. 
The love of adventure was stronger than fear of 
death or captivity. 

It was the morning of June 3, 1898. During the 
night before an attempt to go in had been made, 
but the hour was so late that the admiral called the 
vessel back. Now an earlier start was made, and 
there was no hinderance to the adventurous voyage. 
Heavy clouds hid the moon as the "Merrimac" 
glided in towards the dark line of coast. Eot a 
light was shown, and great skill was needed to strike 
the narrow channel squarely in the gloom. From 
the ' ' ISTew York' ' eager eyes watched the collier until 
its outlines were lost beneath the shadow of the hills. 
Eyes continued to peer into the darkness and ears 
to listen intently, while a tense anxiety strained the 
nerves of the watching crew. Then came a boom- 
ing roar from Morro Castle and the flash of a cannon 
lit up for an instant the gloom. Other flashes and 
booming sounds followed, and for twenty minutes 
there seemed a battle going on in the darkness. The 
' ' Merrimac' ' was under fire. She was meeting her 
doom. "What was the fate of Hobson and his men ? 

Cadet J. "W. Powell had followed the collier with 
a steam launch and four men, prepared to pick up 
any fugitives from the doomed ship. He went 
daringly under the batteries and hung about until 
daylight revealed his small craft, but not a man was 
22 



338 HISTORICAL TALES. 

seen in the ruffled waters, and he returned disap- 
pointed at 6.15 a.m., pestered by spiteful shots from 
the Spanish guns. He had followed the ' ' Merrimac' ' 
until the low-lying smoke from the roaring guns hid 
her from view. Then came the explosion of the 
torpedoes. Hobson had done his work. Powell 
kept under the shelter of the cliffs until full day 
had dawned, and before leaving he saw a spar of 
the "Merrimac" rising out of the water of the 
channel. The sinking had been accomplished, but 
no one could say with what result to Hobson and 
his men. 

Let us now leave the distant spectators and go 
on board the ' ' Merrimac, ' ' seeking the company of 
her devoted crew. It was Hobson' s purpose to sink 
her in the narrowest part of the channel, dropping 
the anchor and handling the rudder so as to turn her 
across the stream. Her length was sufficient to 
close up completely the deeper channel. He would 
stop the engines, let fall the anchor, open the traps 
made for the sea-water to flow in, and explode the 
torpedoes. Ten of these lay on the port side of the 
ship, each containing eighty-two pounds of powder, 
and they were connected so that they could be fired 
in train. There were two men below, one to reverse 
the engines, the other to break open the sea-traps 
with a sledge hammer. Those on deck were to let 
fall the anchor and set the helm. Then Hobson 
would touch the electric button and fire the tor- 
pedoes, and all would leap overboard and swim to 
the dingy towing astern, in which they hoped to 



LIEUTENANT HOBSON AND THE " MERRIMAC." 339 

escape. Such were their plans j but chance, as it 
so often does, set them sadly astray. 

On through the darkness they went, hitting the 
channel squarely, and steaming in under the frown- 
ing walls of the Morro through gloom and death- 
like silence. But the Spaniards were not asleep. A 
small picket-boat came gliding out under the collier' s 
stern and fired several shots at the suspicious craft. 
One of these carried away the rudder and spoiled 
one important item of the plans. The dingy, which 
was trusted to for escape, disappeared, perhaps 
hit by one of these shots. The picket-boat, having 
done this serious mischief, then hurried ashore and 
gave the alarm* and quickly the shore batteries were 
firing on the dark hull. The ships in the harbor 
echoed the shots with their guns. The Spaniards 
were alert. They thought that an American battle- 
ship was trying to force its way in, perhaps with 
the whole fleet in its wake, and were ready to give 
it a hard fight. 

Through the rain of balls the ' ' Merrimac' ' drove 
on, unhurt by the bombardment, and even by a sub- 
marine mine which exploded near her stern. The 
darkness and her rapid motion rendered her hard to 
hit, and she reached the desired spot, in the nar- 
rowest spot of the channel, none the worse for the 
shower of iron hail. 

So far all had gone well. Now the critical mo- 
ment had arrived. Hobson gave the signal fixed 
upon, and the men below reversed the engine and 
opened the sea connections. They then dashed for 



340 HISTORICAL TALES. 

the deck. Those above dropped the anchor and set 
the helm. Only then did Hobson, to his bitter 
disappointment, discover that the rndder had been 
lost. The ship refused to answer her helm, and the 
plan of setting her lengthwise across the channel 
failed. The final task remained. Touching the 
electric button, the torpedoes went off with a sullen 
roar and the ship lurched heavily beneath their feet. 
The sharp roll threw some of the men over the rail. 
The others leaped into the sea. Down went the 
' ' Merrimac' ' with a surge at the bow, cheers from 
the forts and the ships greeting her as she sank. 
The gunners thought they had sent to the depths 
one of the hostile men-of-war. 

At the last moment of leaving the ' ' New York' ' 
an old catamaran had been thrown on the ' ' Merri- 
mac' s" deck, as a possible aid to the crew in ex- 
tremity. This float lay on the roof of the midship 
house, a rope fastening it to the taffrail, with enough 
slack to let it float loose after the ship had sunk. It 
was a fortunate thought for the crew, as it afforded 
them a temporary refuge in place of the lost dingy. 

We may let Lieutenant Hobson speak for himself 
at this point in our narrative. He says, ' ' I swam 
away from the ship as soon as I struck the water, 
but I could feel the eddies drawing me backward 
in spite of all I could do. This did not last very 
long, however, and as soon as I felt the tugging 
cease I turned and struck out for the float, which I 
could see dimly bobbing up and down over the 
sunken hull. 



LIEUTENANT HOBSON AND THE " MERRIMAO." 341 

1 ' The ' Merrimac' s' masts were plainly visible, and 
I could see the heads of my seven men as they 
followed my example and made for the float also. 
We had expected, of course, that the Spaniards 
would investigate the wreck, but we had no idea 
that they would be at it as quickly as they were. 
Before we could get to the float several row-boats 
and launches came around the bluff from inside 
the harbor. They had officers on board and armed 
marines as well, and they searched that passage, 
rowing backward and forward, until the next 
morning. It was only by good luck that we got 
to the float at all, for they were upon us so quickly 
that we had barely concealed ourselves when a boat 
with quite a large party on board was right beside 
us." 

An event which they thought unlucky now proved 
to be the salvation of the fugitives, who very likely 
would have been shot on the spot by the marines if 
they had then been seen from the boats. The rope 
which fastened the float to the ship was too short to 
let it swing free, and one of the pontoons that sup- 
ported it was dragged partly under water, lifting 
the other above the surface. If the raft had lain 
flat on the water they would have had to climb on 
top and would have made an excellent mark for the 
marines. As it was they got under its lifted side, 
and by thrusting their hands through the slats that 
formed the deck they kept their heads above the 
water, and had a chance to breathe. 

Luckily for them the Spaniards paid no atten- 



342 HISTORICAL TALES. 

tion to the old, half-sunken raft that floated above 
the wreck. They came near it frequently, and the 
hidden sailors could hear their words, but no one 
seemed to suspect it. The fugitives spoke only in 
whispers and at times were almost afraid to breathe, 
lest they should be heard, but their hiding-place 
remained unsuspected. 

The water, warm at first, grew cold as the hours 
went on, and their fingers ached as they clung 
desperately to the slats. As the night passed their 
teeth began to chatter with the cold till it seemed 
to them as if the Spaniards must hear the sound, 
so distinctly to their ears came the noises on the 
water and on shore. The situation, in fact, became 
at last so trying that one of the men let go and 
began to swim ashore. Hob son called him back, 
and he obeyed, but the call was heard by the men 
in the boats and created some commotion. They 
rowed up towards the float and looked sharply 
about, but no one thought of investigating the float 
itself, and soon they went off into the shadows 
again, letting the hidden men once more breathe 
freely. 

The question that most interested the Spaniards 
was to learn what ship it was they had sunk. Hob- 
son heard them talking and guessing about it and 
understood many of their words. He soon per- 
ceived that the officers had taken in the situation 
and were astonished at the boldness and audacity 
of the attempt. The boats appeared to be from the 
fleet, a fact to the lieutenant' s satisfaction, as he felt 



LIEUTENANT HOBSON AND THE " MERRIMAC." 343 

more like trusting to the tender mercies of a Spanish 
sailor than of a soldier. At this point we let him 
take up the narrative again. 

"When daylight came a steam-launch full of 
officers and marines came lout from behind the cliff 
that hid the fleet and harbor and advanced towards 
us. All the men on board were looking curiously 
in our direction. They did not see us. Knowing 
that some one of rank must be on board, I waited 
till the launch was quite close and hailed her. 

' ' My voice produced the utmost consternation on 
board. Every one sprang up, the marines now 
crowded to the bow, and the launch engines were 
reversed. She not only stopped, but she backed off 
until nearly a quarter of a mile away, where she 
stayed. The marines stood ready to fire at the 
word of command when we clambered out from 
under the float. There were ten of the marines, 
and they would have fired in a minute had they not 
been restrained. 

' ' I swam towards the launch, and then she started 
towards me. I called out in Spanish, ' Is there an 
officer on board?' An officer answered in the 
affirmative, and then I shouted in Spanish again, 
'I have seven men to surrender.' I continued 
swimming, and was seized and pulled out of the 
water. 

" As I looked up when they were dragging me 
into the launch, I saw that it was Admiral Cervera 
himself who had hold of me. He looked at me 
rather dubiously at first, because I had been down 



344 HISTORICAL TALES. 

in the engine-room of the 'Merrimac,' where I 
got covered with oil, and that, with the soot and 
coal-dust, made my appearance most disreputable. 
I had put on my officer's belt before sinking the 
'Merrimac,' as a means- of identification, no mat- 
ter what happened to me, and when I pointed 
to it in the launch the admiral understood and 
seemed satisfied. The first words he said to me 
when he understood who I was were, ' Bienvenida 
sea usted,' which means 'You are welcome.' My 
treatment by the naval officers, and that of my 
men also, was courteous all the time I was a 
prisoner. They heard my story, as much of it as 
I could tell, but sought to learn nothing more. 

' ' Sharks ? !No, I did not have time to think of 
them that night, ' ' was Hobson's reply to a ques- 
tion. ' ' We saw a great many things, though, and 
went through a great many experiences. When 
we started out from the fleet I tied to my belt a 
flask of medicated water, supplied to me by my 
ship's surgeon. The frequency with which we all 
felt thirsty on the short run into the passage and 
the dryness of my mouth and lips made me believe 
that I was frightened. The men felt the same, and 
all the way the flask went from hand to hand. 
Once I felt my pulse to see if I was frightened, 
but to my surprise I found it normal. Later we 
forgot all about it, and when we got into the water 
there was no need for the flask. ' ' 

The remainder of this stirring adventure must 
be told more briefly. The prisoners were taken 



LIEUTENANT HOBSON AND THE " MERRIMAC." 345 

ashore and locked up in a cell in Morro Castle. 
Meanwhile, there was much anxiety on the fleet as 
to their fate, but this was relieved by the generous 
conduct of the Spanish admiral, who sent his chief- 
of-staff out the next morning under a flag of truce 
to report their safety and to make an offer for 
their exchange. Cervera's message was highly 
complimentary. It ran : 

' < Admiral Cervera, the commander of the Span- 
ish fleet, is most profoundly impressed with the 
brilliant courage shown by the men who sank the 
steamer 'Merrimac' in our harbor, and in admira- 
tion of their courage he has directed me to say to 
their countrymen that they are alive, and, with the 
exception of two of the men who were slightly 
hurt, they are uninjured. They are now prisoners 
of war and are being well cared for, and will be 
treated with every consideration." 

Cervera kept his word, though the captives found 
themselves in different hands later, when they were 
turned over to General Linares, commander of the 
troops in Santiago. They remained in captivity 
about five weeks, being exchanged on July 7, when 
a Spanish lieutenant and fourteen privates were 
offered in exchange for Hobson and his gallant 
seven. The story of their return to the Amer- 
ican ranks is an exhilarating one. As the brave 
eight passed up the trail leading to the American 
lines through the avenue of palms that bordered 
the road, the soldiers stood in reverent silence, 
baring their heads as the band struck up "The 



346 HISTORICAL TALES. 

Star-Spangled Banner." But as Hobson and his 
men swung onward cheers and a roar of welcome 
broke the silence, while a cowboy yell came from 
the Rough Eiders. Breaking from all restraint, 
the men rushed in, eagerly grasping the hands of 
Hobson and his men. All the way to Siboney the 
cheers and excitement continued, and when Hobson 
set foot on the deck of the ' ' New York' ' the crew 
grew wild with enthusiasm, while Admiral Samp- 
son embraced him in the warmth of his greeting. 
As for his comrades, they were fairly swallowed up 
in the delirious delight of the men. Thus ended 
one of the most gallant deeds of that short war. 

It must be said, however, that, skilfully as it had 
been managed, the effort to close the port proved a 
failure. Though the sunken ship closed part of the 
channel, there was room enough to pass beside her, 
this being strikingly proved on the morning of July 
3, when the squadron which Hobson had sought 
to bottle up came steaming down the channel past 
the sunken ' ' Merrimac' ' and put out to sea, where it 
started on a wild fight for freedom. The result of 
this venture does not need to be retold, and it must 
suffice to say that a few hours later all the Spanish 
ships were shell-riddled wrecks on the Cuban shore, 
and Cervera and all who survived of his men were 
prisoners in American hands. But the admiral was 
as much of a hero as a captive, for his captors could 
not soon forget his generous treatment of Hobson 
and his men. 



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